Kazakhstan

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 6:44 pm

Of course the Russian spaceport in Kazakhstan is in Rauan's region.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:03 pm

For what it's worth, I also replied to that Wikipedian luminary who argued that "handling recognized problems of some minor Wikipedias falls outside the scope of WMF."

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 77209.html https://archive.today/46YFu

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 1:17 PM, Thyge <ltl.privat at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do not think that WMF's filing a suit against NSA should be a starting
> point for demanding the WMF to cure all the evils of the World, political
> or otherwise.
>

Well, not all the evils of the world, obviously. But there is certainly
precedent for the Foundation tackling problems in Wikipedia itself. Recall
past board resolutions on BLP matters, for example.

> Even handling the recognized problems of some minor Wikipedias fall
> outside the scope of the WMF.
>

Isn't it in the Foundation's long-term interest though? I can't imagine
donors being overly happy if a part of their money ends up supporting
projects whose function is in any way similar to that of Pravda in the
Soviet era.

> Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia anyone can edit - except the WMF!
> (if they want to uphold their status as service provider).
>

I don't recall suggesting that WMF edit those Wikipedias. I suggested that
they collaborate with human rights organizations to monitor status, and
report on it as part of their stewardship of the Wikipedia project. Is
there anything wrong with that idea?

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:14 pm

DanMurphy wrote:
I like your suggestion about using superprotect to add a warning label.
In the case of the Kazakh-government controlled Wikipedia, they'd simply fork and then block the Wikipedia domain.

I believe they wouldn't be able to call it Wikipedia then without the Wikimedia Foundation's consent.

Anyway, nobody from the Wikimedia Foundation has even so much as commented on the idea to date. So I think it is very unlikely to happen, unless there were major public pressure.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:15 pm

Andreas, they're trying to sweep the bad stuff under the rug, but you keep putting your foot on the corner of the rug.

Alas, don't you realize that there are three other corners that these rats can scurry to, in order to finish their sweep job?

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:22 pm

thekohser wrote:Andreas, they're trying to sweep the bad stuff under the rug, but you keep putting your foot on the corner of the rug.

Alas, don't you realize that there are three other corners that these rats can scurry to, in order to finish their sweep job?

Well, maybe Lila will put a foot down, too.

This was not her doing – it preceded her tenure – and she grew up in Russia. And left it for the US.

If she doesn't, then we need a few more feet from our colleagues in the media. (I'm looking at you, Dan, among others.)

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:56 pm

Rauan Kenzhekhanuly also has a mention here:

Joe Peerson, 20 Feb. 2015, Silk Road Reporters, Jack Straw Slammed for Taking Job with Kazakhstan

Human rights activists have attacked British parliament member, Jack Straw for taking a part-time job as advisor to the Kazakh government. The Republic of Kazakhstan is a dictatorship that has been ruled by the same president since 1989, and which heavily restricts freedom of speech, according to the Independent.

The Register of Members’ Interests that was published most recently has said the ex-home secretary will earn £12,500 a year advising the Eurasian Council on Foreign Affairs (ECFA), which was created via a generous grant from the Kazakh government. [...]

Founding Director of the Eurasian Council, an ex-diplomat from Kazakhstan, Rauan Kenzhekhanuly, commented hat the first goal of the council would be to set up “a number of informative and engaging publications” regarding the Central Asian nations’ economy and culture, to present these to “venerable institutions and policymakers of the European Union”.

Also covered in The Independent, which highlighted the roles of Blair, Mandelson and others: Chris Green, The Independent, 19 February 2015, Jack Straw criticised for accepting part-time job paid for by Kazakhstan

See also Altair Nurbekov, The Astana Times, New Brussels-Based Think Tank to Focus on EU-Central Asia Relationship

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 8:53 pm

William Beutler (thewikipedian.net) has written two excellent blog posts that should really be part of the record here. I'm not sure we've mentioned them before, so in case we haven't:

Jimmy Wales and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Prize Money (on Jimmy Wales' UAE money award)

Bats in the Belfer: A Beginner’s Guide to the Biggest Wikipedia Controversy You’ve Probably Never Heard Of (on the link between the Stanton Foundation and the Belfer Center)

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 8:58 pm

JCM wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote: I think the Signpost needs to cover this astounding story of Jimmy Wales's 2011 Wikipedian of the Year™ making good... See, we aren't all basement-dwelling Cheetos-eaters, some of us are rising fast up the table of ranks in the bureaucracies of authoritarian states!

RfB
I kind of have to agree. Not all news is good news and all that sort of thing, and it wouldn't necessarily be in anyone's worst interests to know that the WMF and its entities can be used by governments and government officials for their own interests, whether anyone else wants them to do that or not.

I put a suggestion in the suggestion box, linking to this thread.

RfB

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 9:38 pm

Steven Walling joins the discussion:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 77224.html

These off topic emails about the same subject Andreas grinds his axe about
perpetually are pretty annoying. Can moderation do something please?

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 12:14 am

HRIP7 wrote:Steven Walling joins the discussion:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 77224.html

These off topic emails about the same subject Andreas grinds his axe about
perpetually are pretty annoying. Can moderation do something please?

Funny, though... he's plenty gabby when you advertise his employer (Quora) for him. Then you're right on topic!

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 12:34 am

thekohser wrote:Funny, though... he's plenty gabby when you advertise his employer (Quora) for him. Then you're right on topic!

Sigh. I had hopes for him, now that he had left the WMF.

Cla68 · Unread post by **Cla68** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:37 am

A number of journalists watch Jimbo's talk page, so I could post a mention of this there when I have a chance. Problem is, I'm banned from posting external links in WP except on article talk pages.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:46 am

Cla68 wrote:A number of journalists watch Jimbo's talk page, so I could post a mention of this there when I have a chance. Problem is, I'm banned from posting external links in WP except on article talk pages.

You could link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... es_good.21

Note that the press articles call Rauan a "former diplomat".

And, by the way, I took up John Vandenberg's suggestion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 12:16 pm

HRIP7 wrote:And, by the way, I took up John Vandenberg's suggestion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index

Should some of us (who are not banned on Meta) "Get Involved", or would that scuttle the effort?

SB_Johnny · Unread post by **SB_Johnny** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 12:21 pm

thekohser wrote:
HRIP7 wrote:And, by the way, I took up John Vandenberg's suggestion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index
Should some of us (who are not banned on Meta) "Get Involved", or would that scuttle the effort?

Frankly this would be great to "CANVASS" on the blog, as it would be likely to get picked up by /., Slate, etc.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:10 pm

Updates to the discussion on the Signpost suggestions page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... es_good.21

https://archive.today/GqxGp#selection-5537.0-5537.39

Have I got this right? Jimmy (a friend of Tony Blair's) awarded 2011 Wikipedian of the Year to a Kazakh bureaucrat who was running a Kazakh government-funded Wikipedia "chapter". Blair at the time had (and still has) a multi-million dollar per annum contract with the Kazakh government to improve that government's international image. Jimmy banned you from his talk page for raising the issue there. That bureaucrat has been promoted to deputy governor of a Kazakh region and has established a turd-polishing operation to improve the international image of Kazakhstan and some other despotic Central Asian regimes. No one from the WMF has responded to your comments about this on wikimedia-l, but a former employee (now employee of Quora - is Jimmy involved on Quora somehow?) has accused you of trolling.

If that's what happened, I think it would be very appropriate for the Signpost to recognise the successful career trajectory of our 2011 Wikipedian of the Year with a succinct summary of the on- and off-wiki background. After all, it's not every day a Wikipedian of the Year becomes deputy governor! Would you consider writing an opinion piece, Andreas? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:24, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The off-wiki background includes more than this. In the discussions of the Belfer Center paid editing scandal [9][10][11] it transpired that the Stanton Foundation, which in October 2011 was reported to have given the Wikimedia Foundation a record-breaking $3.5 million grant, is linked to the Belfer Center by the fact that Liz Allison of the Stanton Foundation and Graham Allison, the Belfer Center's Director, are married.

Graham Allison, in turn, is a past recipient of a special medal of friendship from the President of Kazakhstan. Allison also wrote the introduction to President Nazarbayev's book, Epicenter of Peace.

In the wake of Jimmy Wales' recent $500,000 UAE award, it transpired that Wales had previously been reported on the World Economic Forum website to have contributed to a "Guide to Good Government and Trust-Building" compiled "in cooperation and with the support of the Government of the United Arab Emirates". When Wales was pointed to the UAE government's human rights violations on Twitter and asked why he had lent his name to the effort, given the UAE government's signal lack of credentials in this field, Wales replied that he had been asked to contribute by Prof. Nye of Harvard. According to the Belfer Center website, Prof. Nye, too, is a Belfer Center board member. Together with the Belfer Center paid editing scandal, this marks two occasions where Wikimedia Foundation leaders took some action at the request of Belfer Center leaders that later attracted a degree of opprobrium.

The question on my mind now is whether the reported friendship between the Belfer Center's Director and the Kazakh government, and the fact that the Belfer Center Director is married to the the Wikimedia Foundation's contact at the Stanton Foundation, a major donor, may in some way have influenced dealings between Wikimedia and Kazakh government officials involved in the Kazakh Wikipedia effort.

Jimmy Wales said at the time [12] that the Kazakh Wikipedia effort was not politicized, that there was merely "a great group of volunteer editors - just like you - who are working in a nonpolitical way with their own government to transition an older encyclopedia into Wikipedia, as well as to recruit quality volunteers". Given Rauan's stellar government career both before and after his Wikipedia work, the idea that he should be merely a Wikipedia volunteer like the rest of us, as promoted by both the Wikimedia Foundation and Harvard at the time, seems to have little plausibility. I note for example that the linked pages described Rauan as a "Wikipedian from Kazakhstan", a Harvard student inspired to participate by a "class assignment" who had "worked in civil service in Kazakhstan for several years", all of which sounds innocuous. The recent report in the Independent, on the other hand, described him as a "former Kazakh diplomat".

WikiBilim's website says they "administrate Kazakh Wikipedia", and for years featured a photograph of the Kazakh Prime Minister on every page. [13] That photograph now seems to have been removed. [14]

Jimmy Wales' announcement of the award, by the way, can be seen here, in the video of the Wikimania 2011 closing ceremony: [15]. It mentions "happy puppies and kittens".

Rauan became deputy governor of the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan last December. The governor of Kyzylorda Region is Krymbek Kusherbayev, who was in charge of the Mangystau_Region at the time of the Zhanaozen massacre. [16] Andreas JN466 12:54, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Note that, as mentioned there, the image of Karim Massimov seems to have disappeared from the Wikibilim website. It no longer shows when I access the website.

Compare https://archive.today/fyOCz and http://wikibilim.kz/index.php/english/about-foundtion

This is a very recent development. The image was still there in February

https://web.archive.org/web/20150221200 ... -foundtion

https://archive.today/2kqUY

and was in fact still there on March 15, four days ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150315172 ... -foundtion

https://archive.today/u5Kmp

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:14 pm

thekohser wrote:
HRIP7 wrote:And, by the way, I took up John Vandenberg's suggestion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index
Should some of us (who are not banned on Meta) "Get Involved", or would that scuttle the effort?

I'd say let's wait a bit to see whether there is any uptake among Wikipedia regulars.

By the way, have I done this right? As yet the proposal doesn't show on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Ideas

I don't quite understand how that page works.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 5:20 pm

DanMurphy wrote:Ruan "Jimmy Wales' Wikipedian of the Year" Kenzekhanuly's boss, Krymbek Kusherbayev, was the governor of Mangistau Oblast during the 2011 massacre of protesting oil workers there.

Note that Rauan also worked with Kusherbayev before. His LinkedIn profile states that he was "Policy adviser to the Governor, Administration of Mangystau oblast, February 2008 – October 2009".

Kusherbayev's profile states that he was, "From 2006 to December, 2011 - akim of the Mangistau oblast, from July to September, 2012 the adviser of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan."

Akim means governor; so it was him Rauan was advising.

By the way, Kusherbayev's resignation was covered on Tengri News here (December 23, 2011).

Krymbek Kusherbayev resigned as Mangistau oblast Akim (Governor), Tengrinews.kz reports citing the message of his advisor Zhanna Oishybayeva.

“At the Maslikhat meeting today the President said that Krymbek Kusherbayev asked to release him from his position. The President accepted his resignation. The President noted that there was no fault of Krymbek Kusherbayev in Zhanaozen clashes. Everything happened because of incompetent actions of former management of KazMunaiGas that did not want to contact their employees,” Zhanna Oishybayeva told Tengrinews.kz.

Eurasianet took a different line (July 31, 2012):

Fuelling the sense of political impunity, on July 13 former regional governor Krymbek Kusherbayev, fired in disgrace over the violence, was given a cushy appointment as adviser to President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Reuters said (September 26, 2012):

ALMATY, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Wednesday gave a top government job to the former governor of a region where a workers' strike erupted into bloodshed in December, a sign that loyalty to the leader comes first in the oil-producing nation.

Nazarbayev, 72, who has ruled the Central Asian state for more than two decades, appointed Krymbek Kusherbayev as deputy prime minister, the presidential press service said. It was not immediately clear what his duties would be.

Kusherbayev, 57, has worked as presidential spokesman, health minister and ambassador to Russia. He was fired as head of the western Mangistau region after police used firearms to disperse protesters in the oil town of Zhanaozen and a nearby village, killing at least 15 people last December.

The bloodshed, which followed a months-long strike by oil workers, was the worst in Kazakhstan's post-Soviet history.

The shooting shattered Kazakhstan's image of stability and drew fierce criticism from the country's small but vocal opposition, amid repeated international calls on the authorities to hold a transparent investigation.

Analysts said Kusherbayev's appointment was a signal that personal loyalty remains decisive for Nazarbayev, the only person permitted by the constitution to run for president an unlimited number of times.

"Krymbek Kusherbayev had long been a true member of the president's team. For far too long he had been inside this system, which he faithfully served, and the president generously appreciated this," said Kazakh political analyst Dosym Satpayev.

As strong criticism of the December violence started to subside at home and abroad, Kusherbayev first emerged from the shadows in July, when Nazarbayev appointed him as his adviser.

"His sacking after what happened in Zhanaozen was a forced sacrifice made by Nazarbayev to defuse tension," Satpayev said. "But by choosing Kusherbayev as his adviser, Nazarbayev showed he was part of his team and he would keep him by his side."

Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow-based Central Asia expert, said: "I believe that deputy prime minister will not be his last job."

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:01 pm

This is all very good stuff, but it boils down to this:

Will Jimmy Wales publicly apologize for having made a mistake in awarding Rauan the 2011 Wikipedian prize, or will Jimbo double-down and say he would make the exact same choice again if he knew then what he knows now?

Either position would be newsworthy.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:12 pm

thekohser wrote:This is all very good stuff, but it boils down to this:

Will Jimmy Wales publicly apologize for having made a mistake in awarding Rauan the 2011 Wikipedian prize, or will Jimbo double-down and say he would make the exact same choice again if he knew then what he knows now?

Either position would be newsworthy.

The Swami Vigilant prognosticates!
Jimbo will goes news dark on this and hope that it dies away from the light.

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:17 pm

Thanks for spotting this Tarantino. I’ve asked our friendly contact in Kazakhstan to look at this article (warning: in Kazakh) for a view on its accuracy. As far as I can make out from Google translator, it was the strikers who caused the problem by their illegal use of firearms.

Thyge ltl.privat at gmail.com
Wed Mar 18 19:41:42 UTC 2015

I suggest you take it upon you to have mr. Krymbek Kusherbayev fired and
mr. Rauan Kenzhekhanuly promoted.

Regards,
Thyge

What? Oh of course, Rauan is a Wikipedian and Wikipedia is always on the side of truth.

Unread post by **tarantino** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:24 am

Peter Damian wrote:Thanks for spotting this Tarantino. I’ve asked our friendly contact in Kazakhstan to look at this article (warning: in Kazakh) for a view on its accuracy. As far as I can make out from Google translator, it was the strikers who caused the problem by their illegal use of firearms.

Thyge ltl.privat at gmail.com
Wed Mar 18 19:41:42 UTC 2015

I suggest you take it upon you to have mr. Krymbek Kusherbayev fired and
mr. Rauan Kenzhekhanuly promoted.

Regards,
Thyge
What? Oh of course, Rauan is a Wikipedian and Wikipedia is always on the side of truth.

Thyge Larsen is also known as Sir48. He's been on the ombudsman commission since 2011, and does occasionally have a go at Andreas on the mailing list.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 1:28 am

Peter Damian wrote:Thanks for spotting this Tarantino. I’ve asked our friendly contact in Kazakhstan to look at this article (warning: in Kazakh) for a view on its accuracy. As far as I can make out from Google translator, it was the strikers who caused the problem by their illegal use of firearms.

There is video footage of the Zhanaozen massacre on YouTube. Viewer discretion advised – this is obviously graphic footage. It shows people being shot.
(footage starts at time code 0:40)
Here, by contrast, is Jimmy Wales' announcement of the Kazakh Wikipedian of the Year award at Wikimania 2011. He talks about "happy puppies and kittens."
Time code is 39:00 (clicking this link will take you there directly).

lonza leggiera · Unread post by **lonza leggiera** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 6:14 am

HRIP7 wrote:
thekohser wrote:
HRIP7 wrote:And, by the way, I took up John Vandenberg's suggestion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index
Should some of us (who are not banned on Meta) "Get Involved", or would that scuttle the effort?
I'd say let's wait a bit to see whether there is any uptake among Wikipedia regulars.

By the way, have I done this right? As yet the proposal doesn't show on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Ideas

I don't quite understand how that page works.

It shows up ok for me. It's currently the first item in the "New ideas" section, which has the summary from the Probox and a link to the page containing the full proposal.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 4:31 pm

Jimbo's AMA on reddit is live.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2 ... wikipedia/

I tossed him a softball.

[–]WOVigilant 1 point a minute ago
Mr Wales,
Given your involvement with the notoriously anti-human rights government in Kazahkstan (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1434), including making a government official "wikipedia of the year", are your motives really credible when you enter a suit against the NSA?

Feel free to join in.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 4:33 pm

I got an inadvertent mention and Jimmy's a lying whore.

[–]jimmywales1JIMMY WALES 3 points 5 minutes ago
The community tends to be very vigilant about such things and there's a great deal of transparency around who is doing what at Wikipedia.
Our policies on sourcing help a lot, too. You can't really "doctor" Wikipedia in the way that most people think, because we require high quality third party sourcing.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:20 pm

The AMA is getting a little belligerent toward Jimbo.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:35 pm

thekohser wrote:The AMA is getting a little belligerent toward Jimbo.

He should try answering the questions honestly.

He'd get so much more traction if he'd just said, "I was foolish and didn't do my due diligence when I gave that award. In retrospect, it was a huge mistake and I wish I could take it back. The Kazahk government is antithetical to what wikipedia stands for. My sincerest apologies. I will do better in the future."

Megalomaniacal narcissists have difficulty with this type of speech.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:36 pm

A mod deleted one of my questions...

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 6:35 pm

Very brief timeline of the Kazakh Wikipedia(KZWP)
*June 2011, KZWP organise a press conference. They have invited Ting Chen from the WMF
*Prior to this they have uploaded thousands of articles from the awful KZ encyclopedia, a masterpiece of rewritten history. They have also recruited hundreds of editors with the promise of free laptops and mobiles. The influx of editors hits KZWP in June.
*Ting arrives in Almaty. He excitely posts “Something really remarkable is happenning there”, and in a way he is right.
*He emails the Foundation. The WMF still refuse to let me have a copy of this email – so much for transparency.
*The chart below shows the decline in KZWP editors immediately after the conference.

*Jimmy speaks at Wikimania August 2011. Extract below.

39:00 What I'm going to announce right now is unknown to anybody except a few people who looked at my slides before I put them up. I'm announcing today an annual award – probably annual, if I remember next year – and, ah, the title of the award is 'Global Wikipedian of the Year'. [applause] Given by me personally and my opinion, and later of course like everything that started out 'me personally and my opinion' will find a process in the future to have this be community organised. And this year, the winner is Rauan of Kazakh Wikipedia. So Rauan, if you can come down. Maybe it's too hard to come down – maybe he'll just stay there! So – I've been following the story of Kazakh Wikipedia, er, since, er Ting went to Kazakhstan, and he came back and he reported on something amazing that was happening there. And I started to get in touch with them, and I also I've been getting in touch with the government there. I've been talking to the Prime Minister there. Er, the prize of this, er, it's a two part prize. The first part is a $5,000 donation from me personally to Wikibilim – did I spell that right? Wikibilim – is that the correct name? Wikibilim. Wikibilim is their pre-chapter. It's the organisation they formed to do this and they're applying for chapter status and I assume that it's working through the process there. And this is specifically to cover travel expenses to a conference that he told me they're hoping to have next year, where they're going to bring people from the neighbouring countries and in particular, who have similar type of situation, for a regional conference to explain the success that they've had in their community. Keep it in mind that they've gone from, well, I said the numbers earlier from 20 to 260? From a few to a bunch! that's what we all want, and we're also gonna go, I'll be there, I'm going in December and I'm going to give the award in the presence of the Prime Minister to Rauan, pending scheduling. Prime ministers are always hard to nail down, but they've agreed to the meeting, er, and I think that if we think about the things that they're doing, think about the things that I've talked about, I think that if we really try hard on this, instead of having sad puppies and sad kittens, we'll have happy puppies and kittens. YouTube

The statements in bold are those that I later established as probably untrue. Indeed, Jimmy himself conceded to me that he never spoke to the Prime Minister (although he did speak to someone from the PM’s office).
*16 December – police massacre 14 strikers in Zhanaozen.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:03 pm

Don't forget the Kazakh IP on Meta:

PM of the RoK Karim Massimov have conversation with Jimmy Wales concerning the development of KKWP during the last Davos summit. Also the Parliament member Mr.Murat Abenov is among our strong supporters and he is one of our active community members. Chief of Kazakh National Encyclopedia Mr.Bauyrzhan Zhakyp is also among our supporters.

If any discussion happened between Wales and Kazakh officials (whether it was the PM himself, or just someone from his office, as Wales claimed later) in Davos 2011, this would have preceded Ting's visit there by several months. I'd still love to know whose idea Ting's visit was, and how that came about.

Wales' going to Kazakhstan was publicised by the Kazakh media (it's what started this thread). So the Kazakh government certainly agreed to the meeting in principle. It would have been a great photo op for them.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:52 pm

The Kazakhstan thread in the Reddit discussion is here (archive copy).

Wales says on Reddit,

If I said that I spoke to the Kazakh PM, that was wrong - but I don't have time to listen to it right now. I spoke (by phone) to someone from the office of the PM and met with someone from the office of the PM in Davos.

The nature of the discussion? It was on the importance of freedom of speech and the problems that I have with Kazakh's record on these matters.

("If I said that ..." – the video of him saying it is here. Those memory problems.)

Wales also says he has "never heard of Graham Allison, the Belfer Center, or Liz Allison before".

Liz Allison is the co-director of the Stanton Foundation, the donor of the biggest grant the Wikimedia Foundation has received to date ... and Professor Nye, who Wales says was the guy who told him to contribute to the UAE "Guide to Good Government and Trust-Building", is a Belfer Center board member. There was also a fairly prominent paid editing scandal involving the Stanton Foundation and the Belfer Center quite recently ...

Wales asserts he knew nothing about these people, just as he had no inkling of Rauan's career as a government official.

Wales now says, "If I had known in 2011 that someone would get a job that I disapprove of in 2014, would I refuse to give them an award in 2011? Yes, I would have refused to give that award."

Refused? No one forced him to give that award, did they?

Wales condemns Jack Straw and Tony Blair:

The delightful irony here is that Jack Straw is being condemned for working for the very man whom Jimmy Wales made his Wikipedian of the Year in 2011.

Anthonyhcole · Unread post by **Anthonyhcole** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:44 am

Jimmy Wales wrote:If I had known in 2011 that someone would get a job that I disapprove of in 2014, would I refuse to give them an award in 2011? Yes, I would have refused to give that award.

A very interesting choice of words. I wonder who proposed to Jimmy that he should give a Kazakh shill an award. I suspect he's been had by someone with a big contract to puff up the people-boilers kittens and puppies.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:51 am

Anthonyhcole wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:If I had known in 2011 that someone would get a job that I disapprove of in 2014, would I refuse to give them an award in 2011? Yes, I would have refused to give that award.
A very interesting choice of words. I wonder who proposed to Jimmy that he should give a Kazakh shill an award. I suspect he's been had by someone with a big contract to puff up the people-boilers kittens and puppies.

Interesting...

I wonder how he came to the selection...

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:11 am

I think Sacha Baron Cohen is trolling Jimbotalk...

link https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =652765330[/link]

"Rauan's" User Page: link https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =652770150[/link]

RfB

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:09 am

Randy from Boise wrote:I think Sacha Baron Cohen is trolling Jimbotalk...

link https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =652765330[/link]

"Rauan's" User Page: link https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =652770150[/link]

RfB

Rauank (T-C-L)

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:20 am

Jimmy Wales 2015 wrote:If I had known in 2011 that someone would get a job that I disapprove of in 2014, would I refuse to give them an award in 2011? Yes, I would have refused to give that award.

Jimmy Wales 2013 wrote:You are asking the wrong questions. The right question is this: "Knowing what you know now, would you still make the award of Wikipedian of the Year to Rauan?" And the answer is "Yes". Perhaps if you could give me some indication of what the hell it is you are driving at, I'd be more inclined to research your specific questions, but I do not understand the point.
Link

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:55 am

From the official website of the Kazakh prime minister:

15.12.2011
Number of articles of “Kazaksha Wikipedia” reached 117 thousand

“Kazaksha Wikipedia” project is implemented under the auspices of the Government of Kazakhstan and with the support of Prime Minister Karim Massimov, head of “Wikibilim” public fund Rauan Kenzhekhanuly said in an interview for PM.kz site.

Randy from Boise · Unread post by **Randy from Boise** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:03 pm

Gee, I wonder if the administrators of Kazakh WP have access to checkuser tools...

What could possibly go wrong?

RfB

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:30 am

Randy from Boise wrote:Gee, I wonder if the administrators of Kazakh WP have access to checkuser tools...

What could possibly go wrong?

RfB

No, they don't seem to have access.

Notvelty · Unread post by **Notvelty** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 10:31 am

Poetlister wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:Gee, I wonder if the administrators of Kazakh WP have access to checkuser tools...

What could possibly go wrong?

RfB
No, they don't seem to have access.

Dude, YOU had access to check user tools. Surely the Kazakh government could manage to arrange to get them with minimal effort, given the greater resources at their disposal.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:33 pm

Notvelty wrote:
Poetlister wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:Gee, I wonder if the administrators of Kazakh WP have access to checkuser tools...

What could possibly go wrong?

RfB
No, they don't seem to have access.
Dude, YOU had access to check user tools. Surely the Kazakh government could manage to arrange to get them with minimal effort, given the greater resources at their disposal.

I would think that the Kazakh government would have no need for primitive tools like CheckUser, when they probably have upstream traffic collection that can trace back to specific households, including keystroke capture.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 11:44 pm

thekohser wrote:
Notvelty wrote:
Poetlister wrote:
Randy from Boise wrote:Gee, I wonder if the administrators of Kazakh WP have access to checkuser tools...

What could possibly go wrong?

RfB
No, they don't seem to have access.
Dude, YOU had access to check user tools. Surely the Kazakh government could manage to arrange to get them with minimal effort, given the greater resources at their disposal.
I would think that the Kazakh government would have no need for primitive tools like CheckUser, when they probably have upstream traffic collection that can trace back to specific households, including keystroke capture.

All installed by a US firm and financed by the ImportExport bank.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:43 pm

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedi ... nuary_2009 https://archive.today/54rV3

From January 27 to February 1 [2009], Jimmy Wales and Sue Gardner attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The main goals of the trip were to present a proposal to a potential funder, increase awareness of Wikipedia as a charity among WEF attendees, and actively move forward relationships with a few key major donor prospects.

For what it's worth, Graham Allison too attended the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos. As did Aliyev and Nazarbayev. And Blair.

Of course this by itself indicates nothing. There is no evidence that these people were even aware of each other.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:52 pm

Pete Forsyth's notes on http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Asse ... ce_program https://archive.today/mG9C6 bear re-reading:

Pete Forsyth notes

As the WMF report above notes, I (Pete Forsyth) was one of a few people who criticized WMF's role in the Belfer Wikipedian in Residence (WIR) program from an early stage. In fact, as far as I know, I am the only person independent of the organizations involved (WMF, Belfer, and Stanton) who had substantive and repeated contact with almost everybody involved in the program. (Liam Wyatt's role was significant as well, as described below, but not as extensive as mine.) I believe the following points fill in important gaps in the Wikimedia Foundation report above. I do not attempt to draw broad conclusions in this section.

I also consulted with a number of people both within and outside the Wikimedia movement, at various stages. Those discussions are the only reason any of this has come up for public review.

Here is a timeline of the significant points of contact I had with the program and its precursors:

I was hired as WMF's Public Outreach Officer in 2009, in what was then known as the "Programs" department. In that role, my primary function was to design the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, which was funded by Stanton.

In that role, and also in my later WMF role in Foundation Relations (early 2011), I developed an understanding of Stanton’s reasons for caring about and funding Wikipedia.

Sue Gardner introduced me to Lisa Gruwell, who was hired after I left, in fall 2011; Gardner emphasized my expertise about Wikipedians in Residence, and urged Gruwell to consult with me about Stanton's desire to fund a WIR.

I spoke in depth about Wikipedians in Residence with Liz Allison of Stanton on one and only one occasion (November 2011), when I learned that her perspective on the ethics of organizational engagement with Wikipedia was fundamentally incompatible with mine. We did not discuss Belfer.

Gruwell sought my input into the Belfer program, for the first time, about three days before the job posting was about to go live (April 2012).

I found the job posting highly problematic, and alerted Lori Byrd Phillips (then the WMF's U.S. Cultural Partnerships Coordinator, and one of the first WIRs). She, in turn, brought in Wyatt (the very first WIR, whose work had been featured as the centerpiece of the WMF's 2010 Annual Report). We all agreed it was vital to avert what we saw as a major threat to Wikipedia and to the integrity of the WIR concept.

The three of us participated in a 25 message email discussion, spanning close to two weeks. We and several Wikimedia staff members analyzed the problems with the program as designed, and discussed the best way to proceed. The discussion was primarily for Gruwell's benefit; she participated actively, posting four messages herself, and also actively engaging in a rewrite of the job description conducted in Google Docs.

Gruwell rebuffed my strong recommendation that an expert Wikipedian (me or somebody else) be assigned to guide the Wikipedian in Residence. The job description was edited to remove the most egregious of its many problems.

Also in April 2012, the Wikipedia Signpost published an interview in which I said: "Ideally, we [Wikipedians] develop skills that help us minimize the impact of [our] conflicts [of interest] on a project devoted to neutral information. People in a professional role are no less capable of developing those skills than anyone else, but it would certainly be helpful if other organizations' policies toward Wikipedia were to develop in ways that fully support Wikipedia's mission."

I heard nothing else about the Belfer program until April 2013, when Gruwell told me that the WIR was nearing the end of his term and leading Wikipedia workshops for academics. Up until that point, my best guess was that the program had been abandoned, and I had felt that was perhaps the best possible outcome given the circumstances.

In July 2013, I summarized my concerns about the program in an in-depth conversation with Gardner.

(Lisa Gruwell is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation. She joined WMF in September 2011. Note prior discussion.)

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:16 pm

At the WMF, revenue trumped ethics. Nobody should be surprised by this.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:40 pm

Casey Michel's blog, 25 March 2015: Jimmy Wales, Tony Blair, and an Autocrat Walk into Reddit

[...] Wales has done all he can to distance himself from the “repressive” government in Kazakhstan, opting for semantic obfuscation. [...]

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:33 pm

The title of this thread needs to be updated. 2013 is "ancient history" already, in Jimboyears......

Carcharoth · Unread post by **Carcharoth** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 2:00 am

I've been following this thread and topic with some interest, because I actually visited Kazakhstan in 2012. My memories of the place include being told by a security guard to delete photographs I took in a shopping mall, and the way sometimes the place felt more Russian than Russia, but with an emphasis on Kazakh nationality and ethnicity as well.

Goodness only knows what will happen in any power vacuum that arises after Nazarbayev's decades long rule.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:08 am

Carcharoth wrote:I've been following this thread and topic with some interest, because I actually visited Kazakhstan in 2012. My memories of the place include being told by a security guard to delete photographs I took in a shopping mall, and the way sometimes the place felt more Russian than Russia, but with an emphasis on Kazakh nationality and ethnicity as well.

Goodness only knows what will happen in any power vacuum that arises after Nazarbayev's decades long rule.

Kazahkstan is what people in the US midwest think China is.