Re: Editwarriors fight lies, bigotry and even Nazis

[Giraffe Stapler]

Wikipedia editor 'warriors' fight lies, bigotry and even Nazis
Joshua Melvin, 17 November 2021, AFP (Wash.)

False Covid death reports, a vast gender gap, Nazi "fan fiction": These are some of the perils an international crowd of volunteers battle across Wikipedia’s tens of millions of online entries.

"I always carry my laptop along wherever I go, to edit Wikipedia," said Alaa Najjar, who is based in the Middle East, but asked that specific details about his identity be omitted to protect his privacy.

"It is an addiction, as my friends say. I prefer to say it's my passion," he told AFP by email

Najjar said he contributes to almost 500 entries a week, and as a medical doctor he has been busy fighting a flood of false information unleashed during the pandemic.

Among the strains of misinformation that surfaced on Wikipedia, he has spotted false reports Covid-19 had killed notable people and inaccurate boosting of some nations' death and case numbers.

Alaa Najjar is a very private person, although it doesn't include that detail in his Wikipedia entry. Maybe it did when fellow Wikimedia Group of the Levant member Osps7 (T-C-L) created it, but there have been some revisions hidden since then.

[Jim]

Alaa Najjar is a very private person, although it doesn't include that detail in his Wikipedia entry.

It does contain some deathless prose, though, like:

He spearheaded the COVID-19 project on the Arabic encyclopedia and majorly contributes to the WikiProject Medicine.

The article survived an AFD in August, with compelling arguments like:

Keep Winning the Wikimedian Prize of the Year out of thousands of people is notable, also everyone who won this award has an article on Wikipedia.
I think that Alaa deserves an article on Wikipedia. By looking at the references in Arabic, we see that Alaa deserves an article. --Osps7 (talk) 17:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Keep The proposal to delete this page for the Wikimedian of the Year 2021 is a tragic but classic example of systemic bias on Wikipedia. @Jesswade88: @Deb: @Jimbo Wales: @Rosiestep: @Discott:
- Ear-phone (talk) 17:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

and

Keep all Wikimedians of the Year have articles, article Wikimedian of the Year is a Featured List. The award is aimed at promoting Wikimedia ideas and values among people, creating article is a way to promote, and deleting it is a way to topple. --ssr (talk) 13:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Regarding concern for Alaa's privacy, there was this touching exchange:

Serious question, have we asked علاء if he even wants this article on him? If he doesn't, there's a relatively strong argument to delete. I'm not chiming in either way other than to say that its worth asking the person involved their thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:30, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

What the person subject to the article thinks about it is completely irrelevant. Lionel Messi may wish not to have a Wikipedia article but that doesn't mean we should delete it. We add content based on what is in the reliable sources. Even if the person echoes the wish not to have an article and it appears in reliable sources as such, I assume that the opposition would end up in a separate section but it won't affect the article's existence.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:19, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE would suggest its not "completely irrelevant." Alaa is a "relatively unknown, non-public person", he's not Lionel Messi. The article on him on ar.wiki w:ar:علاء نجار redirects to the page on Wikimedian of the year; presumably if he was an extremely notable person to the point where we shouldn't take his thoughts into consideration, the project in his native language would have an article on him. I'm not actually arguing to delete at this point: I think that we've established that Wikimedians of the Year get an article as a precedent. At the same time, most of them are relatively unknown, non-public people. Since we know who they are and they're familiar with Wikipedia, if an article is being considered for deletion, it is worth asking them the question if they have a preference, and there is a policy justification for that. Basically I only commented above because I think from a human angle, we owe him the courtesy of pinging him and asking the question.TonyBallioni (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to judge the notability of a "relatively unknown, non-public person" by asking him whether he wants an article or not. Once again, we decide about notability based on coverage in reliable sources and someone's personal preference doesn't put weight if it's a borderline case. Also, this may set a precedent that other people may hang on to in the future in order to influence what information to be included in the articles about them (Note: We've already had cases on some Wikipedias in which people insisted information about them to be censored.).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:19, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding me: the policy says we can delete the article even if he's notable if he doesn't want it in cases like this. It doesn't say we have to, but it is a factor we can consider. I'm not saying we should judge notability based on it. I think it is clear from our standards that Wikimedians of the Year meet the inclusion criteria. Just because someone is notable doesn't mean we have to have an article, though, and yes, the privacy preferences of an relatively unknown person is something we should consider when its very easy to ask. If he doesn't respond, it'll obviously be kept, but I do think we at least owed him the ping. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:26, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I see it exists as a possibility in our policies but, in my opinion, that's not something we should invoke in such cases unless the person is threatened because of the availability of some information in public and censoring that information is necessary for safety reasons.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:00, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

[Smiley]

What the person subject to the article thinks about it is completely irrelevant.

Kiril Simeonovski, 22 August 2021

Kiril Simeonovski is Chair of the Executive Board of Shared Knowledge

Shared Knowledge does not appear to be an official WMF Chapter:

established in March 2014 ... the organisation is currently negotiating to get official approval by the Wikimedia Foundation as an official local chapter that will replace the current one, and plan to change the name into "Wikimedia Macedonia" once the Wikimedia Foundation revokes it from the current chapter and gives that right to this organisation.

So how does an unofficial Chapter get to apply for roughly $30,000 a year?

Budget plan 2020 | Total expenses | 28,144.00 EUR

Is it because Kiril also has a place on the WMF's Grant Advisory Committee?

[owl be it]

So how does an unofficial Chapter get to apply for roughly $30,000 a year?

Budget plan 2020 | Total expenses | 28,144.00 EUR

Is it because Kiril also has a place on the WMF's Grant Advisory Committee?

Big if true. Also, "lol" if true.