Creating one global Wikipedia to solve a disinformation problem

[Yumiko]

A few months ago I wrote an article in Slate titled “Non-English Editions of Wikipedia Have a Misinformation Problem" (link). The thrust of this article is that Japanese Wikipedia pages whitewash war crimes committed by the Japanese military during WWII. A group of experienced editors have been removing information they don’t like and spreading historical revisionism. A similar trend exists in other languages, such as the Croatian and Ukrainian Wikipedia.

Since then, I spoke to the Wikimedia Foundation and learned that they hadn’t known about the issues concerning Japanese Wikipedia, because they’d had very little contact with the community. It seems that the foundation has little interest in monitoring the content of Non-English Wikipedia editions.

Currently I'm working on a new article about a related topic and would like to hear your opinions. What do you think about creating one global Wikipedia rather than so many regional versions? Imagine Wikipedia in which people edit and read in their preferred languages. There is only one page per topic. We have just one Wikipedia instead of 302 language versions. The translation technology has been improving so fast that I think it's possible.

What do you think?

[AndyTheGrump]

...What do you think about creating one global Wikipedia rather than so many regional versions?...

Nope. A monstrously bad idea. The 'one global Wikipedia' would inevitably become dominated by English-language-speakers. Or rather, it would if they pulled it off. Which they won't, because they won't try, since it is so contrary to everything the WMF has been saying about diversity. And because it would inevitably result in the major non-English Wikipedias all being forked off.

And even it were possible, the suggestion that would 'solve a disinformation problem' is dubious to say the least. Actually, I'll go further than that, and say that it is an utterly ridiculous claim to make. Monopolies don't cure disinformation, they enable it.

The specific issue this is supposed to address - some of the smaller Wikipedias being vulnerable to becoming politically dominated by narrow nationalistic perspectives - would only be 'fixed' at the expense of doing something even worse. Which is to say, becoming dominated by other nationalistic perspectives, from outside.

In as much as the English-language Wikipedia succeeds in avoiding narrow nationalism at all (which is questionable given how much content assumes a US readership, writes from that narrow perspective, and then fails to even notice), it does so only because there are enough English-speaking participants from diverse backgrounds willing to engage in the political discourse that actually determines article content. The English language 'encyclopaedia' of today is the result of ongoing conflict, not 'community', and that is a good thing, because being political is what people do, when they are permitted to. At least, it is when they aren't concocting utopias where political debate can me magicked away by technological fixes, or by cultural imperialism.

[Beeblebrox]

It seems that the foundation has little interest in monitoring the content of Non-English Wikipedia editions.

Fixed that for you. The Foundation is very hands-off with content, and that is not a bad thing.

[Bezdomni]

I'm assuming the globisch Wikipedia's primary entries on, say, the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen, Christine de Pizan, or cheese would be derived from fr.wp, while articles on sumo, sake or Yukio Mishima would be translated from ja.wp, and Huawei, bitcoin or garlic would be drawn from the zh.wp or ccp.wp versions?

Abstract Wikipedia & Wikifunctions do seem to be funded by the WMF (or at least Denny is) to explore this idea of creating multiple language instances in conformity with information encoded in Wikidata.

---

[Without Comfort]

You will want to acquaint yourself with edits shown to have been done by people at the CIA. Of course, there's disagreement about CIA work: Is it all good, all bad, or a mix? I think we can all see that intelligence agencies from around the globe must be competing for any highly read Wikipedia entries on relevant topics.

I'm not sure you can do much with that, but it bears keeping in mind.

I like utopias in theory. Some small scale communities seemed to function. Can it work globally?

[No Ledge]

Encyclosphere and encyclosearch are other attempts to combat disinformation.

Don't assume that any language Wikipedia is free of disinformation. There is quite an effort going on to whitewash what happened in Wuhan.

[Midsize Jake]

I was gonna say, I actually think deleting all the various Wikipedias except for the Esperanto Wikipedia, and then just having everybody concentrate solely on that one from now on, would be a great idea.

[IhateAccounts]

A few months ago I wrote an article in Slate titled “Non-English Editions of Wikipedia Have a Misinformation Problem" (link). The thrust of this article is that Japanese Wikipedia pages whitewash war crimes committed by the Japanese military during WWII. A group of experienced editors have been removing information they don’t like and spreading historical revisionism. A similar trend exists in other languages, such as the Croatian and Ukrainian Wikipedia.

Since then, I spoke to the Wikimedia Foundation and learned that they hadn’t known about the issues concerning Japanese Wikipedia, because they’d had very little contact with the community. It seems that the foundation has little interest in monitoring the content of Non-English Wikipedia editions.

Currently I'm working on a new article about a related topic and would like to hear your opinions. What do you think about creating one global Wikipedia rather than so many regional versions? Imagine Wikipedia in which people edit and read in their preferred languages. There is only one page per topic. We have just one Wikipedia instead of 302 language versions. The translation technology has been improving so fast that I think it's possible.

What do you think?

I think that based on what happened to me when I filed legitimate RFC's to have Newsmax and "Jihadwatch" labeled as deprecated sources, english wikipedia's disinformation problem is just as bad.

[Beeblebrox]

I was gonna say, I actually think deleting all the various Wikipedias except for the Esperanto Wikipedia, and then just having everybody concentrate solely on that one from now on, would be a great idea.

the TV is in Esperanto, you know that's a bitch

[Poetlister]

What is liable to happen is that people in the USA will find loads of articles about things notable to say Finnish speakers but unheard of in the USA and will seek to delete them. Given that the Finnish speakers will be hopelessly outnumbered, many of these articles will go.

[Yumiko]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on this. I understand that English Wikipedia has its own problems. But if you write a sentence such as "Jews call it the Holocaust, but the truth of the incident is still unknown" on the English Wikipedia, you'll probably be blocked. Yet this is exactly the type of "disinformation" you find on non-English versions such as Japanese Wikipedia.

I know the Wikimedia Foundation isn't legally responsible for the content on Wikipedia, and that they've always been hands off. But I'm sure they read English Wikipedia often and have interactions with the community. On the other hand, out of over 500 employees there is no one on staff who speaks Japanese. All of the board members are Americans and Europeans. Clearly, that's their focus - English and Western European language versions of Wikipedia. So why do they keep expanding it globally?

[No Ledge]

out of over 500 employees there is no one on staff who speaks Japanese. All of the board members are Americans and Europeans. Clearly, that's their focus - English and Western European language versions of Wikipedia. So why do they keep expanding it globally?

Oh, I'm sure they have someone working for them who knows enough Japanese to write their fundraising appeals.

They expand to Japan so they can raise money from Japanese donors.
They expand to India so they can raise money from Indian donors.
They expand to Somalia so they can raise money from Somalian donors.

It's all about the fundraising, and increasing their nonprofit profits.

[Without Comfort]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on this. I understand that English Wikipedia has its own problems. But if you write a sentence such as "Jews call it the Holocaust, but the truth of the incident is still unknown" on the English Wikipedia, you'll probably be blocked. Yet this is exactly the type of "disinformation" you find on non-English versions such as Japanese Wikipedia.

I know the Wikimedia Foundation isn't legally responsible for the content on Wikipedia, and that they've always been hands off. But I'm sure they read English Wikipedia often and have interactions with the community. On the other hand, out of over 500 employees there is no one on staff who speaks Japanese. All of the board members are Americans and Europeans. Clearly, that's their focus - English and Western European language versions of Wikipedia. So why do they keep expanding it globally?

Let's assume WMF knows there's a global disinformation problem on their properties. The know about the Croatian project problem. If you haven't seen it, there's been a thread here recently on that topic.

Wouldn't it be incumbent on the WMF to attempt to raise literacy about this problem and simple potential solutions. For example, they could tell readers everywhere to take the time to check articles in other languages because of the known problems. Google translate isn't great, but it is something. This is a media literacy issue and the solution will have to involve teaching readers what the problem is and how to ameliorate it to the degree possible. Readers could be empowered in this way. The WMF has the cash. As has been noted they've figured out how to ask for cash in a number of languages. Pop-up boxes for this would serve their mission.

[No Ledge]

Let's assume WMF knows there's a global disinformation problem on their properties. The know about the Croatian project problem. If you haven't seen it, there's been a thread here recently on that topic.

• Croatian Wikipedia: the extreme right rewrites history
• Aggressive Croatian Wiki admin (a Wikimedian too embarassing for public viewing)

[Poetlister]

So why do they keep expanding it globally?

It adds to their prestige if they can say that they encompass the globe. I don't see that a truly international endeavour could credibly omit Japan; it is after all the world's third-largest economy and the 11th country by population.

[Yumiko]

Let's assume WMF knows there's a global disinformation problem on their properties. The know about the Croatian project problem. If you haven't seen it, there's been a thread here recently on that topic.

• Croatian Wikipedia: the extreme right rewrites history
• Aggressive Croatian Wiki admin (a Wikimedian too embarassing for public viewing)

Thanks for sharing. I like what Eric Corbett wrote in the thread:

"I doubt that the Croatian Wikipedia is unique in this among the 302 official language Wikipedias. It's always seemed like a crazy idea for the WMF to host content that it has no idea about, as I'd be very confident that there's nobody at the WMF who can read even a fraction of that number of languages.

I don't believe that the WMF will be able to get away forever with their claim that they're only providing the web servers and have no responsibility for the content of anything hosted on them while at the same time accepting payment based on the content of those web sites."

[Yumiko]

Wouldn't it be incumbent on the WMF to attempt to raise literacy about this problem and simple potential solutions. For example, they could tell readers everywhere to take the time to check articles in other languages because of the known problems. Google translate isn't great, but it is something. This is a media literacy issue and the solution will have to involve teaching readers what the problem is and how to ameliorate it to the degree possible. Readers could be empowered in this way. The WMF has the cash. As has been noted they've figured out how to ask for cash in a number of languages. Pop-up boxes for this would serve their mission.

I've also thought of a similar thing as a possible solution. Yes, the WMF has money to do that if they choose to do so.

[Yumiko]

So why do they keep expanding it globally?

It adds to their prestige if they can say that they encompass the globe.

You're probably right.

[Poetlister]

I don't believe that the WMF will be able to get away forever with their claim that they're only providing the web servers and have no responsibility for the content of anything hosted on them while at the same time accepting payment based on the content of those web sites."

Of course, Section 230 immunity only applies in the USA. I'd be surprised if they have such protection everywhere. On the other hand, they rarely worry about foreign jurisdictions, as shown by their contempt for international copyright law.

[No Ledge]

I don't believe that the WMF will be able to get away forever with their claim that they're only providing the web servers and have no responsibility for the content of anything hosted on them while at the same time accepting payment based on the content of those web sites."

Of course, Section 230 immunity only applies in the USA. I'd be surprised if they have such protection everywhere. On the other hand, they rarely worry about foreign jurisdictions, as shown by their contempt for international copyright law.

There's been quite a bit of coverage of this, I outlined some of it here a couple of weeks ago. Basically no one in the WMF really seems to care, people have been telling them about it for years with no action.

I doubt that the Croatian Wikipedia is unique in this among the 302 official language Wikipedias. It's always seemed like a crazy idea for the WMF to host content that it has no idea about, as I'd be very confident that there's nobody at the WMF who can read even a fraction of that number of languages.

I don't believe that the WMF will be able to get away forever with their claim that they're only providing the web servers and have no responsibility for the content of anything hosted on them while at the same time accepting payment based on the content of those web sites. The only question is, in whose interest would it be to challenge the WMF on that basis in a court of law?

My bolding, last sentence

[Giraffe Stapler]

There's a piece about the Croatian Wikipedia in the latest Signpost. Short version: the WMF commissioned a report and, yes, it's just like people said.

[Poetlister]

I don't believe that the WMF will be able to get away forever with their claim that they're only providing the web servers and have no responsibility for the content of anything hosted on them while at the same time accepting payment based on the content of those web sites. The only question is, in whose interest would it be to challenge the WMF on that basis in a court of law?

Anyone who can claim damages on the basis of something on Wikipedia. It may not be possible to track down the actual author of that material, and he or she might not be worth suing. But the WMF has plenty of money to pay damages.

[Yumiko]

There's a piece about the Croatian Wikipedia in the latest Signpost. Short version: the WMF commissioned a report and, yes, it's just like people said.

Yes, I saw the report. I'm glad they finally investigated it. But it came 8 years after The Daily Dot reported the problem (link).

[Yumiko]

Oh, I'm sure they have someone working for them who knows enough Japanese to write their fundraising appeals.

They expand to Japan so they can raise money from Japanese donors.
They expand to India so they can raise money from Indian donors.
They expand to Somalia so they can raise money from Somalian donors.

It's all about the fundraising, and increasing their nonprofit profits.

I was told that the Wikimedia Foundation contracts with translators whenever necessary. You're right in that when it comes to fundraising, they seem eager to reach out to the Non-English Wiki communities. But how much of their resources are dedicated to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of these versions? I'd really like to know the answer to this if anyone has any idea.

[Poetlister]

But how much of their resources are dedicated to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of these versions? I'd really like to know the answer to this if anyone has any idea.

How much of their resources are dedicated to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the English language site? Not exactly a vast amount.

[No Ledge]

I was told that the Wikimedia Foundation contracts with translators whenever necessary. You're right in that when it comes to fundraising, they seem eager to reach out to the Non-English Wiki communities. But how much of their resources are dedicated to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of these versions? I'd really like to know the answer to this if anyone has any idea.

You think the Foundation shows the volunteers who bring you reliable, neutral information that their work matters, by paying them to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the content??

How much of their resources are dedicated to ensuring that the volunteers bring you reliable, neutral information? Zero, nada, cero, null, nulla, néant, ноль,

[Poetlister]

150 rupees: annual income in India is around 380,000 rupees so this is a much bigger ask proportionately than for rich Western countries, equivalent to about £11 in britain. Of course, Wikipedia users in India are likely to have higher incomes than average.

[Poetlister]

Our old friend Andreas chips in.

It's worth noting that Yumiko's article (now also on fastcompany.com)
quotes the WMF as saying it "does *not often* get involved in issues
related to the creation and maintenance of content on the site."

That "not often" actually indicates a little publicised but significant
departure from past practice when the WMF would disclaim all responsibility
for content -- a shift also borne out by the recently advertised
"disinformation" hires who are specifically tasked with identifying
misleading content, primarily, it seems, in "Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, Russian
or Spanish".[1]

As for machine translations, DeepL is in my experience far superior to
Google Translate (though the latter does cover more languages at present).

Andreas

[1] https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/3383195

[Yumiko]

I agree with Andreas' assessment. The Wikimedia Foundation's view seems to have changed slightly. While writing my latest article, the foundation said their trust and safety team is working with a native Japanese speaker to evaluate the issues with Japanese Wikipedia.

I hope this is true. But even if they finally acknowledge the problem, the harm has been already done and it'll be hard to fix the problem unless they change their mindset.

[Smiley]

I agree with Andreas' assessment.

A code we all should live by...

[Poetlister]

Andreas has sparked quite a lively discussion. I'll just quote Mike Godwin (T-H-L).

WMF did not "disclaim all responsibility for content." Instead, WMF
disclaimed primary responsibility for content, and still does. When WMF was
understaffed, as it typically was during Wikipedia's first decade, we made
a point of steering certain complaints and legal demands to the editor
community as a default choice. The policy reasons for this choice were
straightforward. But WMF directly intervened on a number of occasions,
typically as required by law.

Mike Godwin

[Yumiko]

A Japanese Wikipedia editor emailed Trust & Safety and reported several issues including abusive administrators. Here is the response he got:

Aug 23, 2021, 7:17 UTC
Hello XXXXXXXX

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Trust and Safety team.

The Trust & Safety team has taken a look at the situation you reported in your 10 reports. Unfortunately, Wikimedia Foundation cannot assist in handling these requests as we defer to community governance in most matters, including how the community defines and handles abuse. Our suggestion would be to work with the Japanese Wikipedia community on this issue through the community village pump. You can also report a particular user-related concern if you see that the vandalism/abuse raises to the level that needs community intervention.

We would like to invite you to take a look at the range of actions that the Trust & Safety team may take, under our Office actions page, along with the requirements a situation needs to meet before we can review. Hopefully, this page helps understand why the matter is out of scope for the Wikimedia Foundation.

We are sorry that we cannot do more to assist in this situation, but we hope that the community process will be helpful for you.

Best regards,

Tom Paine
Trust & Safety Team
Wikimedia Foundation

[Osborne]

Unfortunately, Wikimedia Foundation cannot assist in handling these requests as we defer to community governance in most matters,

Except when WMF affiliates complain.

We would like to invite you to take a look at the range of actions that the Trust & Safety team may take, under our Office actions page, along with the requirements a situation needs to meet before we can review. Hopefully, this page helps understand why the matter is out of scope for the Wikimedia Foundation.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Office_ ... ce_actions
Removal of advanced rights
In extremely rare situations, the Foundation may become aware of circumstances and information regarding major breaches of trust performed by Wikimedia functionaries or other users with access to advanced tools that are not possible to be shared with the Wikimedia communities due to privacy reasons and therefore can not be handled through existing community governance mechanisms.

They should have added "for their own safety, this complaint cannot be made in public".

We are sorry that we cannot do more to assist in this situation, but we hope that the community process will be helpful for you.

Best regards,
Tom Paine

"We are here to protect and serve, but all we can do is to copy this template into your mailbox."

[Vigilant]

Something, something WP:FRAM

[Yumiko]

So here is what happened. After my Slate article was published, I spoke to Global Head of Trust & Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation. He told me Japanese users should email their team to report problems, such as abusive admins and harassment. So I posted their email address on my blog, encouraging people to report problems. Several people emailed them and got the same response.

[Vigilant]

So here is what happened. After my Slate article was published, I spoke to Global Head of Trust & Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation. He told me Japanese users should email their team to report problems, such as abusive admins and harassment. So I posted their email address on my blog, encouraging people to report problems. Several people emailed them and got the same response.

Lol

[Smiley]

The claim:




The reality:

[Osborne]

So here is what happened. After my Slate article was published, I spoke to Global Head of Trust & Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation. He told me Japanese users should email their team to report problems, such as abusive admins and harassment. So I posted their email address on my blog, encouraging people to report problems. Several people emailed them and got the same response.

So T&S stated one thing to the article writer and then repeatedly stated the opposite to users? Is that what we call a lie?

[Beeblebrox]

I know T&S isn't well-regarded around here, but they do actually do things, sometimes, and it is not always due to obvious pedos. The bar is high, but that's a good thing, having them meddling in stuff projects can, or at least should, resolve on their own is not desirable. (cough, Fram, cough cough) That being said (and not really being overly familiar with this specific problem) if you can make a case that the local community should be able to resolve it, but for whatever reason is not doing so, they may be more inclined to step in. Convincing them to do that will require quite a bit of patience on the part of the reporting party. On the "takes forever" scale they are in between arbcom and the ombuds. You'll get a result, and it probably won't take an entire year, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. (six weeks is the normal minimum for anything not a slam-dunk)

[Vigilant]

For me, the larger question is “Why would anybody trust them again?”

All of the people who pulled the Fram Star Chamber bullshit for Maria and Laura are still employed there.

[Osborne]

if you can make a case that the local community should be able to resolve it, but for whatever reason is not doing so, they may be more inclined to step in. Convincing them to do that will require quite a bit of patience on the part of the reporting party.
On the "takes forever" scale they are in between arbcom and the ombuds. You'll get a result, and it probably won't take an entire year, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. (six weeks is the normal minimum for anything not a slam-dunk)

Stalling is obstruction or unwillingness to do what "Trust and Safety" would mean.
If an article + multiple reports is not enough then I wonder what "convincing" entails.

[Yumiko]

Perhaps I wasn't clear with my post, so let me clarify...

Global Head of Trust & Safety told me Japanese Wikipedia users should email them to report problems that can't be resolved within the community. So a Japanese editor reported such issues including abusive admins, and then he was told to resolve them with the community....

Also, Japanese Wikipedia doesn't have Arbitration Committee.

[Moral Hazard]

I know T&S isn't well-regarded around here, but they do actually do things, sometimes, and it is not always due to obvious pedos. The bar is high, but that's a good thing, having them meddling in stuff projects can, or at least should, resolve on their own is not desirable. (cough, Fram, cough cough) That being said (and not really being overly familiar with this specific problem) if you can make a case that the local community should be able to resolve it, but for whatever reason is not doing so, they may be more inclined to step in. Convincing them to do that will require quite a bit of patience on the part of the reporting party. On the "takes forever" scale they are in between arbcom and the ombuds. You'll get a result, and it probably won't take an entire year, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. (six weeks is the normal minimum for anything not a slam-dunk)

It is good that they are doing something.

Three years after I was banned, Trust and Safety finally banned at least a few unsavory characters, who apparently have not been prosecuted (and so there is not a good reason to name them now).

Wales and Arbcom received plenty of information, and they did nothing publicly, apart from Wales issuing bullshit reassurances to the "community" that the WMF takes child protection seriously.
Arbcom had some apparent concerns about liability, which I can understand....

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia Is Trying to Transcend the Limits of Human Language

Wikipedia has 323 language editions, and at times, there are huge differences between them. For instance, Jasenovac was a concentration and extermination camp during World War II, which is described in detail on English Wikipedia. Hebrew Wikipedia, and other language versions. But according to Croatian Wikipedia, Jasenovac was merely a labor camp.

Spanish Wikipedia refers to Catalonia as a Spanish autonomous community, whereas Catalan language Wikipedia declares Catalonia to be its own country. Until relatively recently, Cebuano Wikipedia said that the mayor of San Francisco was Dianne Feinstein. (Feinstein has not been mayor since 1988; Cebuano is a language spoken in the southern Philippines.)

Why are there such differences? Each language version of Wikipedia has historically been its own project, operating largely independently with the content managed by its own community of volunteer editors. In other words, there is not a singular Wikipedia—there are 323 separate Wikipedias. But at a conference in August, Wikipedia leaders presented a new initiative that could theoretically unify the information presented by all of the other Wikipedias, a proposed language-independent encyclopedia that has been generating buzz and prompting a lot of questions within the free content movement.

Slate

[Midsize Jake]

Slate

No mention of the Japanese Wikipedia situation whatsoever. I wonder if the WMF folks (or whoever's left of them) specifically insisted that he not mention it.

[Bezdomni]

I was gonna say, I actually think deleting all the various Wikipedias except for the Esperanto Wikipedia, and then just having everybody concentrate solely on that one from now on, would be a great idea.

Next time I head up to the Kotopo, I'll tell them you said that.

I gather one of the wiktionnaire !cabals has been hanging out there for years. They do have an excellent little library & OK beer.