I know Medeyko as he started long time ago and may be it was also in the
Affcom if I remember well. That time it was strange to consider how a
person that basically was not able to communicate in English (or in other
language than Russian) was part of a committee.
What is strange is the time taken by the chapter to react to this situation.
I strongly agree that the problem of governance in chapters and user groups
is quite serious.
Sometimes the capacity of reaction to situations of bad governance is on
the shoulders of the same chapter.
The disconnection from the community stresses more that because the chapter
misses one important stakeholder that in some cases can unblock the
situation of renovation.
This resume is quite shocking honestly and also the naivity of Medeyko to
fork a collaborative project without a community.
Good luck
On Thu, 25 May 2023, 20:13 Yaroslav Blanter, <ymbalt@gmail.com> wrote:
> This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it
> could be of general interest here.
>
> Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian
> chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that
> he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of
> the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is
> an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia,
> supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a
> pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
>
> Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money
> to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly
> pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko
> said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger
> of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
>
> The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the
> Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on
> advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first
> responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else
> eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he
> resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case
> pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter
> in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years
> totally disconnected from the community anyway.
>
> I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of
> Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian
> Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and
> never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
>
> Best
> Yaroslav
>
> [1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/
> [2]
> https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%A4%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8#%D0%A0%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%BA%D0%BE
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
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Affcom if I remember well. That time it was strange to consider how a
person that basically was not able to communicate in English (or in other
language than Russian) was part of a committee.
What is strange is the time taken by the chapter to react to this situation.
I strongly agree that the problem of governance in chapters and user groups
is quite serious.
Sometimes the capacity of reaction to situations of bad governance is on
the shoulders of the same chapter.
The disconnection from the community stresses more that because the chapter
misses one important stakeholder that in some cases can unblock the
situation of renovation.
This resume is quite shocking honestly and also the naivity of Medeyko to
fork a collaborative project without a community.
Good luck
On Thu, 25 May 2023, 20:13 Yaroslav Blanter, <ymbalt@gmail.com> wrote:
> This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it
> could be of general interest here.
>
> Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian
> chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that
> he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of
> the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is
> an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia,
> supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a
> pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
>
> Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money
> to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly
> pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko
> said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger
> of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
>
> The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the
> Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on
> advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first
> responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else
> eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he
> resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case
> pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter
> in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years
> totally disconnected from the community anyway.
>
> I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of
> Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian
> Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and
> never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
>
> Best
> Yaroslav
>
> [1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/
> [2]
> https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%A4%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8#%D0%A0%D1%83%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%BA%D0%BE
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/7D2BB3TNJL5KLIGI5T235P35CSJSTA4U/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org