Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-06-19

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-06-19. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

In the media: English WP editor glocked after BLP row on Italian 'pedia (165,049 bytes · 💬)

Italian Wikipedia controversy leads to global lock of English Wikipedia contributor's account

I've been digging into the Orsini/Gitz case since it was raised on a well-known criticism site. My feeling is that if something like this had happened on en.wiki, things would have been very different. It.wiki does not have an arbcom, does not have a method for someone to appeal against a block on their talk page, does not have WP:INVOLVED and has a culture where, it seems, ordinary editors are not allowed to comment on actions taken by admins.

The Orsini article was written by a group of editors, including admins, who did not like his politics. Nothing wrong with that. I don't like his politics. But what they did was create an attack article, as illustrated by Andreas above and by the article in Il Fatto Quotidiano. The involved admins then used their position to block other editors who tried to bring the article to a more NPOV position. Gitz was blocked by one admin for a week and then, with nothing happening in between, a second admin extended the block to indefinite. The first block looks dubious to me. The second ridiculous. It is this second block that seems to have been made by an admin with a conflict of interest as, according to the Il Fatto Quotidiano report, they work for an organisation which Orsini has frequently criticised.

I've more or less stopped editing here coming up to ten years ago, because I thought admins too easily got away with bullying editors who pointed out their mistakes. But it.wiki has that problem in spades. My instinct is that, if something like the Orsini case happened here, the mob with pitchforks and flaming torches would soon be gathered at WP:ANI before heading on to Arbcom.

Gitz has reassured me that they have not made the sort of threats that the Italian stewards claim. They merely emailed the blocking admin to ask them to undo their block in the light of their conflict of interest. Gitz said that they would then voluntarily withdraw from the project. Gitz says that they were approached to comment to Il Fatto Quotidiano but declined to speak to them. (Just to be clear the approach was by a third party who had decided to approach the paper, i.e. the source for the article, not by a journalist from the paper.) Gitz also says that the blocking admin had identified themselves on-wiki and that this information remained there until after the incident flared up and was only revdeled subsequently. Gitz says that they were not the person who spotted that someone with the same name as the admin worked for the organisation criticised by Orsini. Another party had emailed Gitz to point out that someone with this name worked there, and Gitz merely replied that the admin had edited an it.wiki article on that organisation. These COI edits have since been hidden too. So Gitz did not out the admin and raised legitimate issues by email.

We cannot change what happens on it.wiki. Different Wikimedia projects are independent. People banned by Arbcom or the community here have been able to operate as admins on other projects and have remained on the boards of local chapters. But what has happened in this case is that members of it.wiki have decided without good justification to globally block an editor in good standing here. So what are en.wiki people going to do to assert our right to choose who contributes here without interference from another project? --Dronkle (talk) 12:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Gitz has reassured you, how reassuring! An user who has plainly violated the universal code of conduct (m:Policy:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_–_Harassment) has written to you that he has done nothing wrong, and you have the kindness to believe to him and not to the users of it.wiki. Thank you very much for the assumption of good faith.

By the way, Gitz had been previously blocked also on es.wiki. But of course that must be a plot of cunning admins too... Friniate^talk 13:18, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

You say that they have plainly violated the UCOC. Where? What's your evidence for that?--Dronkle (talk) 13:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

As you can easily understand, since the case involves a breach of personal informations, I cannot discuss the matter in public. Friniate^talk 13:46, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

So you're saying thta because Gitz got mentioned in the article, then they must have spoken to the newspaper? That violated WP:AGF. Dronkle (talk) 13:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that. Friniate^talk 13:56, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you both for providing additional context to those of not familiar with the case.

Friniate, since you alleged a "plain" UCoC violation, it's not unreasonable to ask what it consisted in. It seems you are saying that it was about the "Disclosure of personal data (Doxing)" clause in section 3.1 (fixed link: foundation:Policy:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#3.1_–_Harassment). It's clearly possible to provide more concrete information about what such a "breach of personal informations" consisted of without actually disclosing the personal information itself. E.g. (hypothetical example) one could state "user X posted the home address of user Y on-wiki" (without repeating said home address). This discussion is relevant to the wider Wikimedia community, considering the longtime concerns about the vague wording of that UCoC clause and possible over-interpretations.

Also worth being aware that just as this Signpost issue went to press, the article it:Alessandro Orsini (saggista) has been blanked (and its revision history removed from public view) by User:Team VRT, with reference to "a possible legal controversy". Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@HaeB You can ask directly a steward to tell you more about the issue, I don't think that I can say more, but they surely know what's the standard policy in these cases better than me. Friniate^talk 14:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, from your other comments here it sure sounded like you felt familiar with standard policies relevant to this issue. But you're right, let's ping User:Sakretsu - the blocking steward - directly in case they would like to address that question (I see they had already replied to some questions at m:User_talk:Sakretsu#Global_lock_of_Gitz6666). Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:27, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@HaeB I can say, as it was written in the rationale for the block, that there was a "threatening and intimidating behaviour". Friniate^talk 14:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Friniate is being evasive in this matter. The identifying information that was in circulation was

1) the admin's name which they themselves had posted on Wiki. This has since been redacted but was not at the time concerned. During the substantial period that the name was public it was collected off-wiki by someone who is presumably a Wikipedia critic or disgruntled former editor or some such. So hiding the name on-wiki now is very much locking the stable door after the horse has bottled.

2) The admin's employer. The admin posted their CV off-wiki. This linked their name and their employee. It did not link them to their Wiki account. A third party did this. We do not know who. It is not uncommon for people to be blocked or warned on en.wiki for COI edits to their employer's article even though their user name is an alias and they have not mentioned their employer on their user page. This is not regarded as outing.

Also remember that in a recent case that came before Arbcom the real names and places of employment of Wikipedia editors had been mentioned in an academic journal. At least one of the authors of the academic article is a WP editor. Arbcom decided that there was no grounds to investigate this as a breach of the UCoC. So for en.wiki to regard something as a breach of the UCoC the mere mention of such details is not sufficient but there has to be some additional aggravating factor. Remember that a number of notable individuals are wiki editors. If someone edits their BLP to say e.g. that they now work for MIT, then no one would take seriously a claim that the person who added MIT to the BLP was outing the wiki editor who was the subject of the BLP.--Dronkle (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

There were also other things, but I can see how Gitz is telling you only what fits into his narrative. Friniate^talk 06:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Gitz6666 was blocked on Spanish Wikipedia after a couple of dozen edits like this one, removing the 19th-century Flammarion engraving from the Spanish article on the Quran. Now I can't speak to the alleged harassment you assert has happened in the Italian Wikipedia (where admins blocked two users – are you sure you are punishing the correct one?), but in terms of article content, I confess I am as mystified as User:Gitz6666 what the Flammarion engraving (with a citation to wikiislam.net ... a wiki!) is doing in a Wikipedia article on the Quran. Andreas JN466 14:16, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Gitz6666 had already been indefinitely blocked on it.wiki because of his disrupting behaviour. Then it had been decided to give him a last chance, with a de facto topic ban on "hot pages" about the russian invasion of Ukraine. Where did he choose to edit? On an extremely hot page, that, as it was noted here, has been overshadowed today because of legal intimidations against different users, a page that had already been at the centre of two big campaigns initiated by Orsini himself on the social media.

After an umpteenth "incident" with another user, Gitz was blocked indefinitely on it.wiki for the second time. He could have decided to continue to edit on en.wiki and on the other projects. But no, he decided to go after it.wiki administrators. That marks, IMHO, the word "end" for that user. Friniate^talk 14:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Let us note that Gitz6666 is not currently blocked on Spanish Wikipedia. [1] And as far as I can see, the only article edits of note they ever made were 14 edits to remove mostly bizarre pictures (not pictures of Muhammad, you understand, but pictures of Biblical events ...) and plainly unreliable sources from the Spanish Quran article. That they were indeffed for that (even if the block was later undone ...) is again – mystifying. Andreas JN466 15:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

You're an it.wiki admin. Can you explain what was so dreadful about [2] which is given as the reason for the blocks. It looks like a perfectly reasonable comment to me. It.wiki clearly has different standards to en.eiki. You can have them there if you want but don't interfere with en.wiki's right to choose who edits here. Dronkle (talk) 15:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dronkle the it.wiki block has nothing to do with the global block. As I said, he could have chosen to continue to edit on en.wiki and nobody would have said anything at all. It's a matter of personal choices. Friniate^talk 15:26, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

(and the rationale for the it.wiki block it's not that edit, that is the rationale for another block of 1 week.) Friniate^talk 15:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The indef block also gave "Discussioni utente:Luix710" as the reason and that was the only substantial edit bit made to the user talk page. Dronkle (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No, it didn't, it is sufficient to read the block log. Anyway, to all the people who could be interested in the matter and would like to understand more, please read it:Wikipedia:Richieste di pareri/Comportamenti degli utenti/Gitz6666 Friniate^talk 15:43, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The indef block also gave "Discussioni utente:Luix710" as the reason - No, it didn't, it is sufficient to read the block log. - the block log is here, and it clearly shows that Friniate's claim is not true:

21:10, 23 May 2023 Hypergio talk contribs changed block settings for Gitz6666 talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation disabled, email disabled) (abuso di pagine di servizio, edit senza , da Gac sugli attacchi personali, da Hypergio sulle discussioni da cui è meglio in Discussioni utente:Luix710)

Given that several other comments by Friniate on this talk page also turned out to be factually wrong or misleading (see e.g. the discussion about stewards below), we should also retain some skepticism about other assertions by Friniate whose veracity can't be assessed based on public information (e.g. There were also other things...).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:49, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Of course I assume good faith but you have to read the full block log per WP:DGF.

21:10, 23 May 2023 Hypergio talk contribs changed block settings for Gitz6666 talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation disabled, email disabled) (abuso di pagine di servizio, edit senza , da Gac sugli attacchi personali, da Hypergio sulle discussioni da cui è meglio in Discussioni utente:Luix710)

This was clearly a mistake, probably due to wrong cut&paste or some other reason, since part of the sentence has no meaning («edit senza», «sulle discussioni da cui è meglio») and also contains an extra space before the second comma. It was actually fixed 3 minutes later.

21:13, 23 May 2023 Hypergio talk contribs changed block settings for Gitz6666 talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation disabled, email disabled) (Abuso di pagine di servizio, modifiche senza consenso, attacchi personali, incompatibilità col progetto)

What are we talking about? Is it a language barrier again? --Actormusicus (talk) 06:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

About Friniate's specific factual claim disputing Dronkle's observation that The indef block also gave "Discussioni utente:Luix710" as the reason, not about the wider context. Instead of incorrectly claiming that Dronkle had said something false (did you consider that consistent with WP:DGF?), Friniate could have said something like "Yes, you are correct, the first indefinite block on May 23 also gave 'Discussioni utente:Luix710' as the reason, but that probably was by mistake because..." (and then proceed into an argument like the one you just made). But that's not what they did.

Now you might be tempted to argue that Friniate repeatedly making claims in this discussion that are demonstrably wrong doesn't matter because overall that indefinite block of Gitz6666 was still justified. But I would disagree. Everywhere in global Wikimedia community, holding advanced user rights or being entrusted with making decisions based on non-public data is based on trustworthiness. So it can be worth highlighting behavior that is inconsistent with that, especially given the cross-wiki concern about the Italian steward's action that Friniate has been defending here with various arguments that rest on their interpretation of non-public information. (For the record, while I've been growing more and more concerned about that steward action for the reasons detailed below, I don't have a strong opinion about the local blocks and consider it quite possible that as an admin I would also have blocked the user, at least temporarily. Needless to say I'm also not a fan of blaming Ukraine or the West for Russia's invasion, or of overly conspiratorial assumptions about how Nato operates, for that matter.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for having the expectation that an user with advanced rights on en.wiki is able to read a block log... By the way, you are just admitting that I was factually right.--Friniate^talk 07:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

For those reading along who still care about facts: Neither Dronkle nor I are an user with advanced rights on en.wiki. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:47, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

It is worth noting that when Hypergio blanked Gitz's talkpage, they deleted a talk page section where User:Gac had advised Gitz to tone it down. Gac said Gitz's comments were getting close to being personal attacks.

Now clearly there was a cock-up in noting the block reason – I'd noticed this before – which is why Hypergio re-did the same block with a properly formulated block rationale minutes later. But Hypergio's reference in the original block summary to the warning Gac gave Gitz6666 about borderline personal attacks on Luix710's talk page indicates that they read it and considered it worth mentioning as part of their reasoning. Andreas JN466 08:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

You know, Actormusicus, translation is my day job. At times, this includes proofreading Italian translations. My Italian is not as good as my French or Spanish, but I get by. So please don't think you can get away with hand-waving and saying only a true-born Italian could possibly understand that "che sa quasi di minaccia" means that something "sounds almost like a threat" (literally "almost smacks of a threat"). And as for English, English is a second language for me too, just like it is for you. So you are far from the only one using a second or third language to converse here. Andreas JN466 08:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

You haven't answered my question about what was wrong with that edit. But what seems to be the case is that it.wiki community and admins, including those who become Stewards, apply very different standards from en,wiki. Dronkle (talk) 15:33, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, nearly all the pictures he removed were just christian spam, that had no use in an article about the Quran. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 14:32, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Jayen466:, hi @Dronkle:,

I am one of the italian users at that time bullied and then blocked from the Orsini page.

It was an incredibly frustrating and intimidating experience, one that I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemy.

The reason for my block? Simply because I shared additional authoritative sources for reviews of a book.

And it's not just me. @Gitz6666: faced a similar situation for doing the exact same thing: providing sources.

Surprisingly, after a serious investigation these sources have now been fully accepted in the English version. Isn't that ironic?

Please note that on wiki.it these sources were never investigated or commented by the angry italian admins, they were just disregarded, and sometimes even deleted from the talk (another violation of wiki principles by some admins).

So, as soon as you as simple user provide sources that some admins simply dont'like, they simply ignore you and do not argue the merits; instead you are harrassed, alledged, intimidated, and finally banned. This is how wiki.it works with some "hot" topics and some admins. A perfect way to comply with the principles and pillars of wikipedia!

Now Gitz and me are both permamently banned from wiki.it. Danieleb2000 (talk) 19:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a structural problem from a combination of:

1. A "Universal code of conduct" that is so broad and vague that nearly everybody sometimes violates a literal interpretation of it. And this flaw comes from development inside the WMF ivory tower.
2. Making something with such flaws a binding rule
3. Structure that a single individual can interpret it as they wish and unilaterally enact the harshest global penalties based on their interpretation.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

In this case we're not discussing of something that nearly everybody sometimes does, you can be sure about that. Friniate^talk 14:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Why must I think of this and this? (BTW: Why are the archives still on Meta, while the article was moved from the community to the ivory tower?) How to prove massive COI-editing without doxxing the COI-vandals? Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 14:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Sänger ok, so we are now assuming not only that the admins on it.wiki are blocking people without reason, but that they are "COI vandals" too? If you think that it.wiki is some other diverted POV wikipedia, please e-mail the Foundation, I don't know what to say... Friniate^talk 14:40, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The article had a massive COI-problem, that was shielded by the admins, of which one has a massive COI as well. He should not have done anything in this regard as he was everything but unbiased. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 14:46, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No admin had a COI problem, but that is by the way. Friniate^talk 14:58, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

So Voldemort (as a pseudonym for someone, where more information about them would be considered doxxing) was no admin? Grüße vom Sänger ♫ ^(talk) 15:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

He was not in COI, according to the it.wiki policy. Friniate^talk 15:22, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

This is my first and last reply. Under my responsibility: it was me, not my colleague, which definitely gave occasion to Gitz's indefinite block on it.wiki, by blocking him one week, and this has nothing to do with the content of Orsini's biography. Gitz had called for another user's block because of edit war, which I refused, though reverting her edits and giving her a warning. I previously did the same (reverting, but avoid blocking) at least twice as Gitz himself edited Orsini's biography with no regard to consensus and/or by an edit war. Following this, Gitz reached me on the other user's talk page with a long comment, insisting that I had to block her. This was not the right place to discuss such an issue, sounded unfair towards the other user (a new user) and was just the last of a long series of improper comments which were tolerated for too long. So I blocked him one week. I remind that Gitz had already got an indefinite block on it.wiki, but was given a second chance (it was always me the sysop reverting the previous indefinite block) under the promise to avoid hot topics, which he was never able to keep. As a result, Gitz e-mailed me, claiming to get unblocked with no friendly tone at all (“If I were you, I would unblock my account”). So I replied publicly. Such a complaint e-mail, in that tone, was the straw broking the camel's back, and a fellow sysop blocked him indefinitely. Orsini's biography was just the occasion, certainly not the cause, for this. Moreover, the block was applied by an admin who never edited that article (and has, of course, no conflit of interest). Best regards --Actormusicus (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. For reference, here is an English-language version of Gitz6666's Italian block log.

The public reply User:Actormusicus is referring to would appear to be the text marked in green on this Google Translate page. This was swiftly followed by an indefinite block for Gitz6666 (who made no intervening comment) and then a global lock after the IFQ article appeared.

What makes me uneasy here is that –

1. the Italian admin corps protected the article in what seemed to me – and the IFQ journalist – a grossly unbalanced version;
2. the UCoC now allows one or two functionaries to "disappear" editors – without there being any structure that would enforce transparent, consistent standards and independent oversight.

We had an arguable outing case here on English Wikipedia quite recently, also involving a self-disclosure of a legal name made a decade ago, and another editor making highly derogatory comments on the editor and disclosing their (not self-disclosed) workplace in a public venue – yet the outcome was very different.

A Universal Code of Conduct is meant to make editors feel safe. Actions like this have the opposite effect. Andreas JN466 19:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the first point see it:WP:SBAGLIATA. Regarding the second point: first of all, Sakretsu is a steward elected by the global community, of which en.wiki contributors constitute the relative majority. Moreover, the admins should feel safe too, and not obliged to do or not to do things fearing that someone could reveal to the public where they work, live, etc, making them vulnerable to any madman, criminal or extremist POV pusher that has the idea to go after the administrators who rollbacked him online. Friniate^talk 19:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Ah, ecco. Allora mi smentisco e replico di nuovo, ma stavolta nella mia lingua madre, e posso farlo visto che tanti vengono da noi parlando inglese. Capisco la barriera linguistica ma suggerirei di studiare l'italiano, perché la traduzione meccanica dev'essere certamente alla base di molte incomprensioni. Altrimenti non si capisce come possa fallire completamente la logica (certo che Gitz non è reintervenuto: come poteva, se aveva un blocco?). Un buon corso sopperirà certamente alla lacuna, permetterà di entrare a fondo nelle vicende di it.wiki e aiuterà a non prendere cantonate madornali. Ciaone! Actormusicus (talk) 19:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Finally I must say that it is a bit strange this will by some en.wiki contributors to be always the big brothers, this constant meddling in other wikipedias' affairs. We should be discussing on meta, not here, and only regarding the global lock, not other issues. Friniate^talk 19:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Actormusicus: You, on the other hand, should study the wiki pillars and principles better, which for example prohibit removing contributions from the talks, as you did in the case of Orsini's page removing sources of reviews.

Good luck! Danieleb2000 (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

This time I apologise to other participants for writing in Italian, but need to be clear while replying to this native Italian guy.

@Danieleb2000: Le modifiche compiute in evasione sono, come prassi, annullate o cancellate. Gli infinitati non hanno alcun diritto, tanto meno di disturbare un utente che si è ritirato e non gradisce affatto, come è stato perfino costretto a dichiarare, che si strumentalizzi il suo ritiro per secondi fini abusando della sua talk. Racconta pure che sono in abuso io Actormusicus (talk) 20:43, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

@Actormusicus: what are you talking about ?? You are so vague, it is simply not possible to understand what you are trying to say. Please be precise.

There was never a change during a block.

At first you blocked me (yes, an abuse) just because I had used some bold text in a comment in a talk just to make it more readable. What a good reason!

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Danieleb2000&diff=prev&oldid=133639529

And this was your reaction (yes, an abuse) to a post on the talk of Orsini by the user "Orangesong", who had just done some good research and just provided some sources (all of them now accepted in the English version, isn't it ironic?):

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Orangesong&oldid=133748950

I translate your block explanation into english:

---------------------------

What I think about it I have said it and I do it: from now on whenever I fish for attempts to alter WP:CONSENT by newly single-purpose registrants in the wake of "complaints" from the person concerned:

1. I cancel the interventions

2. I block the user until WP:COI statement on entry and discussion, as I am going to do with yours.

---------------------------

And this was done immediately to a new user, who of course had no idea about COI, and had no COI at all.

It was not an evasion, Orangesong was a new user, there was even a CU on him (1/06/2023) vs @Gitz6666: with negative response:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Check_user/Richieste

Finally, when I just posted a comment on Hypergio talk (4 july), my one-month block was already expired (26 june). I was on vacation in Spain and did not realize that my mobile browser was not logged-in, that is the reason why you see a spanish IP. But I could not even explain it since I was immediately blocked.

What a great way to comply with WP:AGF and WP:BITE!

Nice work Actor, please go on like that! Danieleb2000 (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, "on vacation"... You were using an open proxy, do you think that we are stupid? Friniate^talk 03:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate: yes, I was on vacation in Spain on Mallorca island, and indeed the IP belonged to Mallorca.

Besides open proxies are globally rejected by wikipedia, so what?

But your are trying again to spread false claims, the IP was not the reason of my ban. The reason was a supposed "assault", while I just posted a link to the "Il Fatto Quotidiano" asking if the COI was confirmed, rejected or at least discussed, because the users asked and needed to know what happened to Hypergio.

Transparency is fundamental for the community!

Below the full text of my comment on Hypergio talk: WHERE IS THE ASSAULT ???

--------------------

TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH:

For all those who comment below the section 'gulp' and may not be aware, Hypergio vanished after two articles were published on Il Fatto Quotidiano (the second of which [1]) suggesting a serious Conflict of Interest (COI) on Orsini's (later deleted) page, where Hypergio had intervened by banning user Gitz, as Hypergio is supposedly an analyst at Nci Agency, the NATO communication agency.

Unfortunately there has been no denial or admission of the aforementioned conflict of interest so far, as the rules of Wikipedia would actually require.

[1] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2023/06/21/dopo-le-proteste-ora-wikipedia-chiude-la-pagina-sul-prof-orsini/7201924/

ORIGINAL ITALIAN:

Per tutti coloro che commentano sotto "gulp" e che forse non ne sono a conoscenza, Hypergio si è volatilizzato dopo che sul Fatto Quotidiano sono usciti due articoli (il secondo dei quali [1]) che ne postulerebbero il grave Conflitto di Interessi (COI) sulla pagina (poi cancellata) di Orsini, sulla quale era intervenuto bannando l'utente Gitz, in quanto Hypergio sarebbe un analista della Nci Agency, agenzia di comunicazione della Nato.

Peccato finora non sia ancora arrivata nessuna smentita né nessuna dichiarazione di ammissione del suddetto conflitto di interessi come invece le regole di Wikipedia richiederebbero.

[2] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2023/06/21/dopo-le-proteste-ora-wikipedia-chiude-la-pagina-sul-prof-orsini/7201924/

--------------------

There is no assault; "assault" is yet another blatant lie.

You confirm again and again what I wrote below:

if you wiki.it admins would spend time and energy in complying with wiki principles and pillars and investigating the submitted sources instead of pushing your POVs, manipulating or even deleting talks, censoring other admins COI and intimidating and harrassing users, all of this would have never happened and wiki.it would have a better quality and more good contributors.

The inquisitory and biased approach of you wiki.it admins is totally disrupting the project. It seems you are not interested at all in producing a good encyclopedia, and this was clear in the Orsini catastrophic case. And this is not the only one.

Danieleb2000 (talk) 07:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't fully know the reason, since a CU blocked you and he couldn't reveal the details about your activity as an IP for privacy reasons, but that was a clear violation of it:WP:GIUDIZIO. Moreover, technical informations about that IP prove that you're lying. Friniate^talk 07:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I barely intervene on the Orsini issue at all, and one of the very few edits that I made on that talk was to ask to move the draft to the Ns0 in april 2022, but now I learn that I had a biased approach towards Orsini, ok.... Friniate^talk 08:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate: You are lying, this was the comment on Hypergio page, and that IP is from Mallorca island:

14:47, 4 lug 2023‎ 37.152.91.203 discussione‎ 42 532 byte +959‎ (oggetto della modifica nascosto) Etichette: Annullato Modifica da mobile Modifica da web per mobile Nuovo argomento

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Hypergio&action=history

Later on I reply to the admin who blocked me with mobile data, because wify was shaky in the hotel.

I have nothing to hide: wiki.it admins have probably something to hide since you removed my comments, as well as comments from other registered uses. What do you have to hide?

I repeat: the reason of the blockage was not "GIUDIZIO", was a supposed "assault" which never happened; and my comment wrongly with IP had anyhow nothing to do with GIUDIZIO, since it was just a link to a press article to provide information, I did use it neither to influence any talks, nor to alter the CONSENSO nor to make changes to any articles.

Regarding Orsini and your bias, I do not remember your interventions there, but you joined the discussion of Orangesong (who was censored from Orsini talk and then blocked) and you just confirmed the allegations of COI without even discussing his provided sources:

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Orangesong&diff=prev&oldid=133767922

That contribution from you to the discussion is really interesting because it reveals your real motivations:

"Here we have a professor trying to create a press campaign for self-promotion. This is nothing new, in fact, it is commonplace on Wikipedia, and such attempts are always stopped (…) Is there a risk of sometimes falling into the opposite excess? Perhaps, but it should be made clear that this kind of behaviour is counterproductive and that wikipedia does not let social campaigns dictate the line. Users in good faith can contribute to the remaining million and more articles".

This basically means: how dare simple users to publish an article on Orsini talk without the consent of the holy admins? How dare they! Simple users in good faith should just do something else, let only the holy admins interact in the talk and move on.

What a nice approach!

Again and again, you confirm what I wrote: many wiki.it admins are just interested in a crazy and pointless witch hunt, they are not capable to investigate sources and facts and their interest has probably nothing to do with creating a good encylopedia. Danieleb2000 (talk) 09:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

This meant only that wikipedia couldn't exist if everyone would try to constantly send hundreds of fans to try to influnce what it's written on the encyclopedia. Therefore, such attempts are always fought off, no matter who is trying to do that. I sent that message to actually help you understand which was the context in which you were moving. But I guess that I should have remained silent, if that it's now used as a proof of my bias against Orsini, which is laughable.

As for the rest, yes, the open proxy is from Madeira, but the rest of your story simply doesn't add up (I cannot say more about it in order to safeguard your own privacy). Friniate^talk 11:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate you are heavily confused and pointless, believe me.

1. Again, the IP of my comment (14:47, 4 lug 2023‎) on Hypergio talk was from Mallorca (Mallorca and Ibiza Customers) where I was on vacation, not Madeira, and is not an open proxy. I have seen that there were also OTHER comments from IPs, but it was not me, I commented only once on Hypergio talk
2. Other users commented with their account, why have been also their comments deleted? Something to hide?
3. Again, the IP was not the reason of my block, which was instead a supposed "assault" which never happened. The assault was a blatant lie from an admin, as usual, similar to what happened to Gitz, with false allegations
4. You wiki.it admins just always find excuse to block users who do not share your biases, when I was blocked from the BPV bar the reason was uttlery ridiculous (monoscope, even if I wrote 5 new articles from scratch!)
5. You did not send the comment to me, but to Orangesong instead (I am NOT Orangesong)
6. You just supposed a priori that Orangesong was a fan without even investigating what he wrote and the sources he provided, this is a violation of WP:AGF and is exactly what I define as bias
7. many users already in 2022 provided similar sources on the Orsini talk, and they were no fan of Orsini since there was no post on any social at that time

That said, I was and am always interested in offering my help for the good quality of the enciclopedia, not in feeding pointless dispute with admins full of bias and arrogance, and the page of Orsini had nothing to do with fans, it was just ridicoulous, only biased admins and users could not realize it.

So, if it is not possible to contribute on wiki.it, I will contribute on other languages with a more professional atmosphere. Danieleb2000 (talk) 12:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Therefore, such attempts are always fought off, no matter who is trying to do that. Telling the public they have no business commenting on Wikipedia articles really kind of goes against the Wikipedia principle. Wikipedia invites and relies on public participation.

Moreover, any decision as to whether an article is or is not biased has to be made on the merits – i.e. based on the available sources – not based on whether a complaint of bias comes from an established editor, a newbie, or even the biography subject themselves. The only thing that matters, or should matter, is whether the article is as good as we can make it. Andreas JN466 14:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Public participation and self-promotion campaigns are two different things. Moreover I've already explained to you the context, what I was referring to, and why many editors choose not to intervene at all.--Friniate^talk 15:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate

Jayen466 got exactly the point which you still neglect:

"any decision as to whether an article is or is not biased has to be made on the merits"

And this is exactly what you admins do not understand and always avoid. You never discussed the facts and sources, but just your assumptions, which funnily enough are quite opposite when the article is edited by holy admins. Why did you exclude a priori that the admins came from a denigratory campaign ?

And again: at least 12 editors mentioned in the talk that the article was not neutral and provided the additional sources already since 2022; no campaign was plausible at that time, nevertheless all of them were just ignored.

So in this case good admins interested in the quality of the enciclopedia should have just clustered all the mentioned sources in a new chapter in the talk and as soon as possible initiate a discussion on them, not harrassing the users and deleting their contributions.

@Jayen466:

Danieleb2000 (talk) 15:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Ma basta, ti va bene che non posso collegare in pubblico utenze e IP, altro che "non ho mai contribuito da proxy", valà valà... Friniate^talk 16:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate

The funniest aspect of this Orsini catastrophe is that, instead of apologize and taking a break to figure out how it was possible for you admins to have ridiculed it.wiki so blatantly for the umpteenth time, with your abuses and your evident misunderstanding of the wiki pillars and principles, and how to avoid it in the future for the sake of the project itself, you admins are still out there fueling unnecessary controversy, pursuing on harrassing users, trying to justify yourselves and still thinking you were right.

It is so fascinating! Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:06, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Friniate

I have a mobile phone with the Opera browser, which integrates a free simple VPN (really useful to use ChatGPT for free).

It can be that a couple of times (and indeed it happened once also on this talk even today) a clicked on "reply" or "comment" forgetting that the VPN is active, but in this case wikipedia immediately rejects that accidental attempt since it detects the open proxy.

So it can be that I was sometimes just unintentionally logged with my account and an open proxy, but I never edited with an open proxy IP without being logged with my account, simply because wikipedia blocks it. Danieleb2000 (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Complaining about a hatchet job and self-promotion are two different things. It is in both Wikipedia's and the biography subject's interest to have a hatchet job remedied.

I frankly don't understand why Italian admins didn't simply allow the editors that were so inclined to add the (extremely well-sourced) positive reviews. Andreas JN466 15:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466 unfortunately it is a common pattern on some "hot topics" on it.wiki (the same happened recently for instance in the Stepan Bandera article): a cluster of "holy" admins edits or changes articles pushing their POVs (with Orsini it was so blatantly evident, also with denigratory information that had no sense in a short biography) and then they forbid any other users to contribute, sometimes even in the talk. Only if the lack of the neutrality raises the attention of some other admins or some long-long time it.wiki users then there is the chance that the article is fixed, otherwise it is almost impossible.

And this unfortunately discourages so many good italian editors that do not touch the "fire" anymore; all the other who "dares" (like Gitz and me) are sooner or later blocked. Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466 thanks for the precious observation. Unfortunately this is what constantly happens with some admins in wiki.it

Please consider that we are talking about a comment with sources in the talk, not about a change in the article, but since "such attempts are always fought off", that comment was even deleted from the talk by an admin.

So they sabotage even the talks.

And this is not the only bizarre reason I have read from admins:

1. once I was told that, since the article was approved by holy admins when it entered ns0, then it should not be changed anymore and besides one is not allowed to raise doubts of neutrality
2. once I was told that negative reviews are more relevant that positive reviews (again related to the Orsini page) to justify the omission of positive reviews
3. once I was told that wiki.pl is biased and shall not be considered at all

I hope it is clear now how much biased are some admins in wiki.it

Danieleb2000 (talk) 15:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

My point is that it shouldn't be a steward – one person – making a decision to globally lock an account that has made 7,500 edits on a project like en:WP without any apparent controversy. We have an arbitration committee composed of about a dozen people who deliberate for weeks before indefinitely blocking a long-term contributor, and community bans are a community decision arrived at over a period of maybe a week, not a snap decision made by an individual in an afternoon.

As for "the wrong version", that does not apply to biographies (especially with the history of that article). And your last point – unless you want to assert that Gitz6666 is a "madman, criminal or extremist POV pusher", this has nothing to do with the present case; and the "threatening email" that preceded the indefinite block doesn't really sound threatening to me (it's been posted off-wiki) ... But you're right, Meta would probably be a more appropriate place. Andreas JN466 20:54, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It has to do with making personal informations public. I cannot say more because of the aforementioned reasons. And where is written exactly that wp:sbagliata does not apply to biographies? Friniate^talk 21:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No, wait a moment, so an e-mail containing personal informations has been posted off wiki? Could you please give me the link (also by e-mail)? I think that it's a very serious evidence that the stewards should know... Friniate^talk 21:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Help! I cannot find the word threatening in my reply above any more! Who's stolen it? --Actormusicus (talk) 22:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

That's likely because you said it on 23 May: il tono dell'e-mail (inclusa la chiosa finale «fossi in te mi sbloccherei» che sa quasi di minaccia -- source. Is there a finder's reward? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 02:55, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@SashiRolls but what has to do that email with the global lock? Friniate^talk 05:20, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@SashiRolls, that's the problem: you are not able to catch the shades in a language you don't manage, nor is the machine translation. Sa quasi di minaccia does not mean it's threatening. Moreover, I never connected that sentence to a global block (?), but rather said: di cui terrò conto nella valutazione di ogni possibile recidiva, i.e., when you are back, I may apply longer blocks in case of recurrence. It implies an expiration of the block, not an indefinite block, let alone a global one Actormusicus (talk) 09:20, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

the UCoC now allows one or two functionaries to "disappear" editors - hold on, while agree with your uneasiness, it may be a bit too quick to blame the UCoC here - we haven't actually talked yet about whether Sakretsu's action was consistent with the UCoC enforcement guidelines. Without going into detail, I think there may be serious questions about that. (Separately, as detailed below, there are also doubts about whether it was in line with existing steward policy.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:59, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll leave a comment on this since I got pinged above. I haven't read itwiki discussion on the Orsini article yet. To be honest, I haven't even read the article itself. I'm pretty busy these days as you can tell from my scarce contributions. However, it's not clear to me where this so-called "massive COI-editing" is. The second admin that indefinitely blocked Gitz didn't edit the Orsini article, nor did they discuss it. According to Gitz, when this admin joined Wikipedia, they created an article without a proper COI declaration. But even if that was true, I wouldn't know what to do with this information so many years later. Has there been a massive COI-editing on itwiki that I'm not aware of? I hope not.
As for Gitz's block on itwiki, let me give you some background. Gitz was indefinitely blocked on itwiki for the first time in January 2022. When Gitz appealed the block, the community considered giving him a second chance. The abovementioned admin was in favour of it at first, but then they changed their mind because of the tone of Gitz's replies. Nevertheless, Gitz was allowed to resume editing after one year and the community decided that he was to be blocked indefinitely again upon the first violation of the unblock conditions. This is why I find the change of the duration of Gitz's last block from 1 week to indefinite coherent. And this is also why I'm absolutely certain that Gitz wasn't blocked "because he was defending Orsini". The supposed relevance of any organization involvement in Gitz's block is just ridicolous. Many admins warned Gitz. Ironically, before being blocked by Actormusicus, Gitz himself agreed that he was losing his temper and that he was discussing hot topics in open violation of the community-imposed sanction.
A brief look at the situation around the Orsini article tells me that editing it was difficult due to external pressure and meatpuppeting already (it was protected on the wrong version). Now any edit is even impossible due to legal threats. This should not surprise neither T&S nor stewards as I informed them in advance that legal actions were on the way.
Back on the main topic, ie. Gitz's global lock, Jayen says the Universal Code of Conduct is meant to make editors feel safe, and I take that to the letter. If Gitz wants to publish all of his mails related to this case on that criticism site, that can only make things easier for me. My lock is not based on a convenient TL;DR. Let's start off with this: perhaps can Gitz explain how I knew that legal actions were on the way?--Sakretsu (talk) 21:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I second Sakretsu's word one by one. I simply didn't care (and tbh I still don't) about the controversy surronding that article. Gitz6666 is playing an asymmetric war (using unaware users as his own infantry) against the blocking admin, taking advantage from the fact that both the admin in question and anyone who has been made aware of what happened off-wiki won't act like him, so he knows he's safe from threats like outing, threats of outing, contacts through workplace etc etc etc.
Anyway, T&S is being informed of what is supposed to be known, but let's stop a minute to think about the probability that out of 121 it.wiki administrators and 33 stewards all of them are part of the NATO plot against Gitz6666. Vituzzu (talk) 07:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

And there lies the problem. You started by not caring about the possibility that the dispute is about a BLP that is genuinely an attack piece. It.wiki malfunctioned because it allowed a situation to develop that one of your national daily papers and also the Signpost have articles about how the BLP on Orsini was an attack piece. Now the article has been hidden because you and Sakretsu were both too close-minded to consider the possibility that Gitz had a point and that there was something fundamentally wrong with the BLP. If you had looked at it you would have seen that the root of the problem is not what Gitz and Danielep did; it is that a group of people chose to use Wikipedia to attack Orsini. He might be deserving of attack but a WP article is not the place for that. It is the smug way in which the it.wiki admins, including the two stewards, assumed that their fellow admins - the ones who were using their powers to defend the biased and therefore libellous article - were acting in good faith that led you to misdiagnosing the problem. The problem was not Danielep ignoring consensus or Gitz losing his temper. It was that it.wiki lacks a mechanism for taking control of articles away from a group of point of view pushers especially when that group includes admins. (The admins in the pov-pushing group are not the ones who have come here but the ones who helped write the attack piece and reinstated the unbalanced attack comments on Orsini and removed the references to positive reviews of his book.) It isn't Gitz's fault that Orsini is threatening to sue and the article has now been hidden; it is yours and the fault of all the close-minded people who considered his behaviour to be the problem. Just look at how Sakretsu referred to the wrong version essay. He is so smugly convinced that the problem was with Gitz that even after the article has had to be hidden, even after the storm here he refers to that essay. It is wilful stupidity.--Dronkle (talk) 10:01, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dronkle Vituzzu is simply playing his usual role here, which is to let people outside it.wiki think that he is the nice guy who wants to save wikipedian's privacy and safeness. He could not care less about that, his sole interest is in saving his and his own friends' image. For those working inside it.wiki, it is very well known that admins abuse their role all the time and support each other in doing that. There's plenty of examples. You want an easy one with multiple similarities or connections to this case? Here they are making a point about how bad it is to reveal the identity of a user in the discussion of a COI. Good. Then take the deletion of the page on Luca Poma. Here you find two distinct admins (Kirk39 and Pulciazzo) repeatedly insisting on asking user LoSpecialista whether he is Luca Poma in real life. And, in Vituzzu's words, this is perfectly fine according to 121 it.wiki administrators and 33 stewards, because in their kingdom, among friends, they can do whatever they want. This is just the first example that comes to my mind related to this specific situation, but you can find tons of examples for each misbehaviour you might think about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.179.50.167 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you IP. I had posted earlier that it was quite common to effectively out editors in COI cases and that was one of the reasons why the mere identification of someone's name and employer was not normally deemed (at least on en-wiki) as sufficient reason to block someone under the UCOC. Arbcom declined to do that in the recent Holocaust in Poland case where just this information has been published about two en.wiki editors in an academic article co-written by a third much less prolific en.wiki editor. I see that LoSpecialista has been blocked under the UCOC by Vituzzu of all people for a "massive" violation of UCOC, presumably for publishing some names. But did the person who published those names ever say they were LoSpecialista or visa=versa? Dronkle (talk) 04:54, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure we are on the same page, I didn't even know whether Lo Specialista was ever blocked by Vituzzu (is that even true?), and in any case that was not my point. My point is that the it.wiki admins do not follow any ethical commitment nor any kind of logic based on pillars or other utopian ideas of the sort, they simply use it.wiki as their own property and use all kind of tricks to help each other doing whatever they want or need to do. When they find in their way a suspected COI, they don't give a fuck about doxing, that is what the example meant. And the same holds for "assume good faith", "no personal attack" and so on. They play with those rules and turn them around as they see fit. Of course not all of the 121 admins. When Vituzzu says 121 admins, you should know that there are a bunch of them who actually "own" the it.wiki (maybe 20 or so, it's called "la cricca" in Italian, that includes Vituzzu, Gianfranco, Phyrexian, Ignisdelavega, etc.) and the other ones who simply know they don't have to interfere if they don't want to end up being ejected.

The problem came out in this case because it involves a highly sensible issue: Orsini, NATO etc. but it affects essentially all of the project. I can start listing examples but really I would not know where to start from. Let's go back in time, perhaps how they managed to get rid of Camelia Boban? Just look at the names in this page and you will see there's not some other bunch of random admins out of the 121 ones, they are always the same. Their attitude is all over. The formal reason is not really important, you can agree with Camelia or not (I don't in this case), but had some of their friends done the same things they would have just ended as an unimportant fight. But the goal is to get rid of Camelia and they know how to do it. Just note for example this detail: in the discussion admin Phyrexian wrote as a quotation something that Camelia had never actually said. It took user Postcrosser two explicit requests to make Phyrexian "say" (no apology of course) that it was his (unquestionable) interpretation of the meaning of what Camelia had actually written. And then they play around forever with words and meaning and innuendos with Actormusicus like they are the nice intelligent and welcoming guys who would love to help Camelia in her rehab, but she has to bag pardon. Like they are priests in church. Can you imagine some other random user would be allowed to misquote some admin statements and get along as if nothing?? They would be immediately banned.

You want to go back some more in time? How much... do you know that if you complain about CU abuses by Vituzzu and, based on the Ombuds Commission acknowledgment of repeated CU abuses by Vituzzu (with the silence of other it.wiki CUs), you vote against confirming him as an admin you get banned forever? Guess who was there to do the "problem solver" Mr Wolf? Gianfranco of course! The official reason used was that the user had used the page for inappropriate purpose. Can you believe that? And here they want to let us believe that they care about privacy?? You want to go back even more in time?

Do you know that Vituzzu already some ten years ago was powerful enough to unblock himself on the it.wiki using his higher flags?? And come out of the ensuing discussion even stronger. And I could go on, I mentioned some epic cases but examples of the way "la cricca" works are everywhere. Just tell me where to write and I can list dozens, and I am sure other users hundreds. It would be actually worth setting up a page on meta for this, if we are talking about UCoC.

Nothing can justify harassment, nothing. Talking in circle about the details of a BLP is just a distraction from this. Vituzzu (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The fundamental purpose of Wikipedia is that it produces accurate and balanced articles. if it does not do this nothing else matters. So your focusing on behaviour alone is fundamentally wrong even if what Gitz did genuinely was harassment, and I remain unconvicned that it was. Dronkle (talk) 10:17, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

You claim to remain unconvinced because it's a quite hard to swallow pill.
Biographies can be fixed if necessary, crushing other people's lives can't. Vituzzu (talk) 10:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

You have failed to notice that writing an attack piece IS harassment of the target. It's just because of your WIkipedian mindset, you regard harassment of an insider as far more important than that of an outsider. Dronkle (talk) 10:33, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Today I learned that negative reviews = attack piece = harassment (*). Today I learned.
(*) which is bad, unless directed against Wikipedia editors. Vituzzu (talk) 10:42, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

And this sort of comment is why it is harder to believe you than Gitz. Gitz posted enough information on a certain off-Wiki site where it was possible to evaluate some of his claims. It was possible to see the current state of the Orsini BLP and to verify that it was biased and gave undue weight to negative factors. It was possible to look at the Fatto piece and check it against the current and past states of the BLP. It is possible to read Andreas's piece above and check that the reviews he links are positive and neutral as he says. But you provide no means to check what you claim. Instead you minimise the twisting of the truth that went on in the BLP. In English and some other Common Law courts witnesses swear or affirm "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Gitz seems to be committed to that concept even to the extent that he gets blocked rather than give up. He fought to make the Orsini article tell the whole truth and he was prevented from doing so by a group of it.wiki admins. I have been given reason to believe that, Gitz, that Andreas and that the writer of the Fatto piece are committed to giving an accurate representation of what has been going on. So when the author of the Fatto piece says that they tried to contact the blocking admin and that he declined to reply, then I assume that they tried messaging him through Wikipedia, or the social media sites they refer to, or that they rang him at work. There is no reason to doubt them. But when you (and two of the other Italian admins here who have referred to the attack piece as the WRONG VERSION,) talk about it in such flippant way, I get the impression that you have little interest in "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". You then all go on about Gitz having done something really bad but you can't tell me or the other people here about it but I should trust you all, and I ask myself why should I since the truth means so little to you. Especially when whatever he has meant to have done is supposedly too secret for Gitz, let alone the people here, to be told what it is but all four Italian admins who have turned up here seem to know what it is and members of Arbcom are dropping hints about it and I don't know who else has been told (Want to know a secret?) about it but you can't state it plainly and you can't tell Gitz. Dronkle (talk) 05:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

One of the attitudes I genuinely find to rank top among distusting things is spitting absolute and complex truths without a bare knowledge of events and facts. Yeah the truth means so little to me, I just want to realized the NATO plot. And ofc, all but four, regardless if anything had been shared with 121 Italian admins, 33 stewards and T&S staff. Vituzzu (talk) 06:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry but the above comment is pretty difficult to understand. If I understand you correctly you are just repeating your assertion about a "NATO plot". Up until now, you are the only person to have used these words, suggesting that you may be constructing a strawman? Chances are good that even a hypothetical NATO employee would not have been acting on behalf of their hypothetical employer, but rather as a loose cannon...

You also keep mentioning 121 Italian admins. Did some or all of them sign off on your global lock of Gitz6666? If so, where can this document be consulted? Could you also link to a document showing the support of 33 stewards (or any stewards other than yourselves) and/or trust and safety? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 07:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

My global lock? You're so careless about this case that you don't even know I didn't lock anybody.
The only strawman here has been written by you, I may guess, in order to cover up your lack of arguments: I said that I constantly share every information I have with 121 admins, 33 stewards and T&S staff, would you like a formal proof that this is true? BTW feel free to misinterpret this with all the bad faith you can. Vituzzu (talk) 08:25, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Please act professionally. You said I second Sakretsu's word one by one. I simply didn't care.... This means to me that it is not an abuse of language to include you in a collective "your glock". Your familiarity with the case and your adamant prose here suggest that you were involved in the decision... if that is incorrect I apologize. As for the strawman which you, and only you, seem to be advancing, here it is again: let's stop a minute to think about the probability that out of 121 it.wiki administrators and 33 stewards all of them are part of the NATO plot against Gitz6666. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 08:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Apologies accepted. Vituzzu (talk) 09:39, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

So this thing which Gitz is supposed to have done, which you haven't set out clearly to him because it is so ultra-confidential and top secret and which you can't possibly state here, is so top secret and ultra-confidential that it has been shared with the best part of 200 people. I'm not talking about the evidence. I'm not demanding to see the emails. I am asking for a clear statment of the nature of this harassing thing that Gitz is supposed to have done. Dronkle (talk) 08:52, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

You should dedice, sharing information with entitled and NDA-bound persons is either good or bad? I've just replied to Gitz6666 through VRT, I refused to make this through private emails and I actually preferred to leave it to other people. The nature is "using knowledge of private information to condition other legitimate editors". I hope to have given you enough material to interleave with taunts about on a critics' forum. Vituzzu (talk) 09:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

"condizionare"... -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 10:14, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Sakretsu, that's a very weird answer coming from a steward in your situation. I hadn't pinged you above to take a "brief look at the situation around the Orsini article", or to speculate about other aspects of the issue that you are - by your own admission - not familiar with, or to defend past actions of other itwiki admins.

Rather, the Signpost article's headline and main focus is about your own decision, as a steward entrusted by the global Wikimedia community with special powers that very few users have, to lock this account on all projects including English Wikipedia for an alleged UCoC violation. This is highly unusual (see below) and it's not unreasonable to inquire about a more specific rationale. You dismiss this with a sneering My lock is not based on a convenient TL;DR (after having found the time for lengthy musings about other topics) and immediately pivot to the rather disingenuous suggestion that the user whose rights to communicate on Wikimedia projects you had just removed yourself should provide details instead. If Gitz wants to publish all of his mails related to this case on that criticism site, that can only make things easier for me - so in your assessment as a steward, these emails do not contain sensitive information?

May I remind everyone of meta:Global locks, which says that:

Reasons to request a global lock
The below reasons are not community-approved policy. Usually, global locks happen in clear-cut situations; in more complex cases, stewards may decide whether to impose or lift global locks in a case-by-case basis.
[...]

• Accounts that have violated other principles which are grounds for indefinite blocks on multiple individual wikis, such as making repeated legal threats, publishing child pornography, or posting private personal information about others which may endanger them.
  [...]

(my bolding)

Sakretsu, can you confirm that this is the reason that your global lock is based on? (I don't see how the others in that list could be relevant here, but happy to be corrected.) I'll also note that among your almost 10,000 global account locks (thanks for your service!), this is the very first one that refers to the UCoC (most used the standard rationales "Spam-only account" or "Long-term abuse", i.e. refer to other reasons in the list mentioned above).

A few other points of relevance here:

• m:Stewards policy#Avoid conflicts of interest cautions stewards to refrain from "changing rights on home wikis (wikis where they are active community members)", stating that "Such situations should be left to neutral stewards". Sakretsu's home wiki is the Italian Wikipedia (as is that of Vituzzu, who above second[ed] Sakretsu's word one by one). I don't think that a steward having been pretty busy these days so that they didn't have time to edit much on their home wiki recently should exempt them from this policy.
• In addition, per m:Stewards policy#Check local policies, Should a wiki have existing policies regarding the steward action, stewards must ensure requests conform to the relevant policy before acting, or that a consensus in favour exists. The English Wikipedia is one of these wikis with such a local policy (Wikipedia:Global rights policy#Stewards), which might be worth reviewing in light of the present incident.
• For the avoidance of confusion: Global locks decided by a single steward are to be distinguished from m:Global bans enacted by either the Foundation or global community consus. (And while global bans and locks imposed through WMF Office actions have been controversial at times too, we can at least be reasonably certain that they went through internal review of several staff at the Foundation's Trust and Safety team. Sakretsu states above I informed [T&S and stewards] in advance that legal actions were on the way, but 1) seems rather obfuscatory about who originated these legal threats - the locked editor, the article's subject, someone else?, 2) is in interesting contrast to Vituzzu's statement that T&S is being informed of what is supposed to be known - i.e. only now, after the global lock, 3) is very different from stating that the Foundation had reviewed and endorsed this global lock.)
• Stewards are accountable to the global community, and there are yearly confirmation elections (usually in February). In most case these attract zero oppose votes, but there have been cases of stewards not being confirmed after having overstepped their bounds.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Gitz was already blocked on it.wiki as Sakretsu globally locked him, so he didn't change no right at all on his home wiki. Friniate^talk 07:37, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

No, that's not true. A local block can be removed again by local administrators (and often is). But a global lock can't, and also prevents users from even logging into their account, not just from making edits. (You might be confusing global locks with m:Global blocks for IPs, which can indeed be overridden by local admins.)

In other words, we have a steward here who decided to intervene on their home wiki by in effect making an existing block permanent (i.e. not removable by admins) and by imposing additional sanctions on the account beyond a normal block (removing the ability to log in and still use the account in a read-only way). Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@HaeB with this idea every global lock is an abuse since every global lock impacts also on the stewards' home wiki. Fact is, Gitz had already been blocked on it.wiki and nobody asked for his unblock on it.wiki (except for Gitz himself, of course), so Sakretsu's decision did not have any impact at all on it.wiki. Friniate^talk 09:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

As for the global rights policy, it does not speak about global blocks (of course: they are global actions, en.wiki has no right to block them), but about rollbacks and oversights, actions that effectively take place on a specifici wiki. But, again, that is not the case. Friniate^talk 10:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

with this idea every global lock is an abuse since every global lock impacts also on the stewards' home wiki - yeah, no. Please actually read the policy linked above (m:Stewards_policy#Avoid_conflicts_of_interest), it does "except [...] clear-cut cases (such as self-requested removal) or emergencies." m:Global_locks#Reasons_to_request_a_global_lock lists such "clear-cut situations." And these - particularly "spam-only account" and "Long-term abuse" are what stewards usually refer to as rationale for a global lock - including Sakretsu, who (as I detailed above), despite having done almost 10,000 global locks before, appears to have never used the rationale before that they used regarding Gitz6666. Can you find another example in the global locks log where a steward globally locked a user who is active on the steward's home wiki for a reason that's not on that list of clear-cut situations?

nobody asked for his unblock on it.wiki (except for Gitz himself, of course), so Sakretsu's decision did not have any impact at all on it.wiki - I explained the concrete impact in the very comment you were replying to. And the steward policies don't contain exceptions like "stewards should not do X, except if nobody asked them not to do X, then it's OK to do X".

it does not speak about global blocks (of course: they are global actions, en.wiki has no right to block them) - your claims are directly contrary to m:Stewards policy#Check local policies. Besides, you're again confusing global blocks and global locks, and that in response to a comment where I had specifically explained that difference (and also mentioned the fact that global blocks are in fact a "global action" that can be overridden by local admins). This conversation is starting to feel like a Gish gallop where every time I debunk some of your claims you just move on to pile on additional wrong statements. If this is representative of the attitude of Italian stewards or the itwiki admins that they collaborate with towards movement-wide policies, then we have a wider problem. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:20, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

And yet another attack on the leg, since you couldn't control the ball... Do you manage to stay on the subject without making comments on just how terrible I am? Just try... Your assertion that a steward can never lock globally since in this way they would change rights on the home wikis is clearly illogical. According to your theory, no steward that had as an home wiki a wiki where Gitz was active (that includes it, en, es, az, commons, de, en.wikitionary, fr, hi, it.wikiquote, ja, kk, nl, ru, simple, uk, wikidata, zh) could block him. Does it leave any steward at all? And more importantly, so an user who is sufficiently active cross-wiki becomes untouchable? Friniate^talk 23:23, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I never said that that a steward can never lock globally - again, please actually read the comments you are replying to, where I talked at length about how the usual global locks that are decided and enacted by a single steward are not problematic in this regard, and also about other forms of global sanctions that for good reasons are not being entrusted to the decision of a single steward.

It seems that you don't like it if other editors observe that statements that you have made are factually wrong, but it's not a personal attack to do so. (Looking at other parts of this talk page, I noticed that you have also made demonstrably false claims in exchanges with other editors.) It's also not off-topic to highlight this sort of behavior by an editor entrusted with advanced user rights, especially given that you have repeatedly made arguments here whose credibility rests on trust in your interpretation of non-public information.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:44, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I drew only the logical conclusion of your reasoning, that is that, except for emergencies and self requested removals, a steward cannot lock a user active on his home wiki, even if there is no conflict of interest at all since the user had already been blocked. That means that if an user is active on the home wikis of all the stewards, nobody could lock him. Am I wrong? I think that this is a clearly irrational interpretation of the policy. I did not made any false claim, I simply assumed that a rollbacker on en.wiki is able to read a block log without needing my help. Friniate^talk 08:32, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Moreover, I'm not a steward, I'm not required to know exactly all the global policies related to the role of the stewards, so it can perfectly be the case that I make errors. I answered to you only because I saw a clear logical error in your interpetation of the policy, that leads to paradoxical conclusions. Friniate^talk 08:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Global bans workflow (from m:Global bans

there is no conflict of interest at all since the user had already been blocked - again, I disagree with this "already been blocked" reasoning, as detailed above. It would be nice of you to at least acknowledge this, if not actually address the arguments made there.

if an user is active on the home wikis of all the stewards, nobody could lock him - no, it could simply mean that this is not a case that should be decided by a single steward, and should rather be left to the other processes I mentioned above, e.g. a community global ban (at the end of which a steward will enact the community-decided global lock, which nobody would see as a COI concern even if the sanctioned user is active on the steward's home wiki - the COI is about decisionmaking, not about actions where the steward has no leeway to act differently).

Besides, this "user is active on the home wikis of all the stewards" case seems a fairly contrived example to me anyway. I will give you though that the stewards COI policy is very brief and doesn't seem to have been written with edge cases in mind where the "neutral stewards" that it talks about do not exist. I did not write it. If you asked for my personal opinion on how one might clarify and update it, I would probably start by distinguishing between cases where the sanctioned user was merely active on the steward's home wiki and cases such as Sakretsu's lock that we are discussing here, where the sanctioned behavior occurred on the steward's home wiki, which should be seen as a more serious COI. And then, we could start thinking about ways to mitigate COI concerns in that "no neutral stewards exist" edge case, for example by requiring that such a global lock has to be decided and publicly endorsed by several different stewards from several different wikis.

Apropos global bans, a few quotes from the official policy about them, to illustrate how Sakretsu's action contrasts with community expectations about those:

• A global ban reflects a broad and clear community consensus.
• Global bans are exclusively applied where multiple independent communities have previously elected to ban a user for a pattern of abuse.
• Please remember, global bans are intentionally very infrequent.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

But how could a community process take place if most part of the evidence is not public? Friniate^talk 12:15, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I didn't say that a public community process is the only option in cases where evidence is not public. In fact, in the very comment that you are replying to, I already sketched out how a better process could look like if one insists to keep it among stewards, and if not, there are also still global bans imposed through WMF office actions (where, as I already mentioned above, we can at least be reasonably certain that they went through internal review of several staff at the Foundation's Trust and Safety team). Either is better than a single COI steward deciding to impose a global lock and then dismissing questions about a more transparent rationale with a haughty My lock is not based on a convenient TL;DR. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:06, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

You can see in this thread two messages that prove that the stewards are very much aware of the issue and that they are discussing it. Moreover, I think it's highly preferable that the global actions against disrupting editors are taken by stewards elected by the global community and accountable to it, and not by functionaries of WMF, except for particular cases and reasons. Friniate^talk 17:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty of stewards whose home wiki isn't it:WP or en:WP. Andreas JN466 21:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Excluding all the wikis on which Gitz was active they were 13 out of 33. Not so many actually. But my point was general, I think that this is a wrong interpretation of the policy. Friniate^talk 10:32, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Right. 13 out of 33. And how many is it if you exclude the dozen or so wikis that Gitz only ever visited to undo Ben Bilal's cross-wiki vandalism and make local editors aware of it? Andreas JN466 12:35, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

If we take WP:SENSE into account we should also admit that Sakretsu did not use his global rights to overrule the consensus on his home wiki, since the consensus for the block was clear, and therefore there was no COI. Friniate^talk 13:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

This sounds like a discussion supporting actions taken on Italian Wikipedia. If it were that, we would not be having this exchange here. The global lock and the particulars related to it are the issue that brings it here. North8000 (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

This started as and IS a discussion disputing actions taken on it.wiki. So, yes, we should not have this exchange here. We are facing two different issues: a) the way the neutrality of a BLP was or wasn't fixed; b) the way the feeling of trust and safety that everyone here has the right to have has been attacked and eventually denied on the basis of a ridiculous misconception of what a conflict of interests is. To insist in assessing both as if they were one, this is wrong, no doubt. This thread is about the global lock of a user: issue b) led to Gitz's global lock. Some en.wiki editors seem keen to assess it.wiki approach, as if they were stewards. They are not. Somebody here seems to enjoy screeching and wrangling about things they know only superficially. I hope all the issue will be assessed by people really accountable for that. --Pequod76 (talk-ita.esp.eng) 11:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000, so are you saying that a page named Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost on English language Wikipedia is the right place where to discuss a global lock? Wow. Just wow. I 100% agree with Vituzzu. For the safety of all the Wikimedia volunteers, if someone threaten a voluteer in real life we must ban him from all Wikimedia platforms. --Phyrexian ɸ 11:31, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000 thank you for remarking that en.wiki has no global control powers over minor wikis, a notion that is often forgotten. What could have been said about the glock has already been said here, there is nothing to add to the edits of Vituzzu and Sakretsu, since telling more would mean to breach the privacy of other users. I guess you'll have to trust the 33 stewards in the way they handle sensible cases like this one. Friniate^talk 11:41, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

No, I am never going to trust any single person to make such a huge global decision. Doubly so when the same person declares that it needs to be in secret thus making both decisions not subject to review. North8000 (talk) 12:27, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

So the part bound by secrecy should be always succumb? Btw as already said, there are currently 121+33+more (T&S staff) aware of Gitz6666's actions and lock full rationale. Btw you'd be surprised by the quantity of global locks which is made on a daily basis. Vituzzu (talk) 12:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

As a note, I've received an email by Gitz6666, given that he reads this page I take to chance to clarify I won't reply through personal emails given his bad faith and his habit (even in the email in question) to skew facts. --Vituzzu (talk) 12:58, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000 so what are you asking? That we breach Ucoc/NDA/etc only because you don't trust any it.wiki admin, any steward and any T&S staff member? Friniate^talk 13:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

The points that I'm making are all systemic and I am not criticizing the actions or judgement of any individual. A full answer would be about large scale systemic changes. Probably the most that is possible here is clarity on the details of the decision process for making global locks. North8000 (talk) 15:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@@North8000 Could you please help me understand what you want? And what right do you claim to make this criticism? The whole case is well-known to all the admins of it.wiki, it has been taken to the appropriate channels, you can't say that only one person is aware of the matter or acting in response to the events. Fresh Blood (talk) 15:36, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@Fresh Blood: To simplify I assume that you are refering to my "Probably the most that is possible here is clarity on the details of the decision process for making global locks." My starting questions are: 1. Which person(s) were in involved in the decision to do a global lock? 2. Which specific wiki rule was violated that led to that? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:33, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

It was a rethorical question. I'm referring to your 'single person to make such a huge global decision, and please fix my signature because you changed it Fresh Blood (talk) 20:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I find quite odd to be forced to write here to Gitz6666 to stop writing to my personal email address. Writing blatant lies as a provocation is a very very old trick to either draw attention or rude replies. Vituzzu (talk) 20:03, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

In case this gives the impression that Gitz is harassing you, it's worth pointing out that in between your 12:53 and your 20:03 posts, Gitz was advised by an Arb to contact the stewards. If you won't reply to him, how about providing some other email address he can use to contact a or the stewards? Dronkle (talk) 06:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

He probably forgot to tell you he sent at least 21 emails to stewards@wikimedia.org and he got 11 emails in reply. Or probably you're omitting this detail just to prove your bad faith. Vituzzu (talk) 08:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

A few comments:

• Gitz is no Saint. He would have a great potential and uncommon qualities, but he loves incendiary polemics more than fruitful contributions. Just look at their first it.wiki block. In en.wiki he has been indefinitely topic banned from the Russo-Ukrainian War for battleground behaviour and tendentious editing. You can dig into that thread and in relevant discussions to see how his discussing methods and strategies can be exhausting if not blatantly disruptive. Then he decided to follow the editor he disagreed on that topic (Voluntar Marek) over the Holocaust in Poland Arbcom case (and that's why he was added to the parties in the case, even if no sanctions against him were taken). Would had not been blocked, he would probably had been at this point at ANI for something else: he loves too much arguing for the sake of arguing.
• Il Fatto Quotidiano articles are not a neutral source. This is the newspaper Orsini works for and it is know for its biased journalism. Orsini's page was not such a blatant "attack page" like some comments above suggest, at best there were a couple of controversial points to be retouched, which would had probably quietly happened without the tons of meatpuppets flooding in the page though the Orsini's social media campaign. The other blocked user was basically a SPA and just received a temporary block.
• it.wiki has tons of problems. It has no ANI. It has no ARBCOM. It has not a formal way to appeal blocks or bans (Gitz's second chance after his first ban came from off-wiki discussions and discussions on en.wiki talk pages). There is no place to discuss admins' actions. It is a strange place where probably there are more admins than regular contributors. This structure alone causes many admins to act as Gods and not as normal users with a few extra buttons. If during the yearly confirmation discussion process of an admin (which is often a farce, with dozens of collegues flooding the page with "great!" and "one of the best of us!" comments opposite not enough regular editors to make a balanced discussion) someone raises a criticism, they will not infrequently receive a formal or informal warning from a colleague for personal attack or whatever. Admins more often than not act like an army, and they put solidarity between themselves before disagreements and rules.
• Actormusic's 1 week block was acceptable (not saying right or wrong, but I can understand from where it comes from), the following almost immediate out-of-process indefinite block (made while Gitz was still blocked, so the timing in the first place makes little sense) was an overreaction by an admin who had an obvious COI, so at best he should not having been the one to block him. Most it.wiki admins know it and would privately agree with it, but you'll not ever find an it.wiki admin admitting this.
• Not enough elements to say if the global block was due or not. But no doubts about Sakretsu's good faith. --151.74.246.52 (talk) 09:15, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  [3] Friniate^talk 10:15, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  Actormusicus. Latin not English. Sorry but as an admin I pay attention to details. Always --Actormusicus (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  What does this link (English-language version) have to do with 151.74.246.52's comments? Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• (Steward Note) The current global lock regarding this user has an open lock appeal; the lock appeal pipeline is somewhat backlogged. The greater stewards team is aware of this specific appeal. As there is non-public information related to this case I am not at liberty to share details other than that the lock was not made accidently. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:59, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  To confirm to avoid any doubt, all the Stewards are aware and what Xaosflux says is accurate - a lock appeal is underway and includes NPI. MarcGarver (talk) 12:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Here are links to Gitz6666-related discussions on es.wikipedia:

• es:Wikipedia:Tablón de anuncios de los bibliotecarios/Portal/Archivo/Miscelánea/2022/10#Adueñamiento en Corán de cuentas foráneas
• es:Wikipedia:Café/Portal/Archivo/Ayuda/2022/09#Adueñamiento en Corán de cuentas foráneas
• es:Discusión:Fuerzas separatistas rusas del Dombás
• es:Discusión:Corán#vandalismo?

--19:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)~~

On the subject of Alessandro Orsini

If there are substantial reliable reviews for two or more of his published books, then he would handily meet WP:NAUTHOR requirements. I think I'll start pulling together a draft at Draft:Alessandro Orsini (sociologist) tonight and, depending on how far I get, introduce it to mainspace. Both because if he's notable for his published works, then he's notable. And also because, if this issue on Italian Wikipedia is indeed about them not liking Orsini, then I'm quite happy to make an article on him here on the much wider read English Wikipedia positively showcasing his academic background, just to rub the It admins noses in it. I like to be petty like that. Silverseren^C 23:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

And I'm doing so as someone who very much does not support the guy's personal politics, I should note. Silverseren^C 23:56, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

You can draw on the Slovenian and Lombardic articles. Bovlb (talk) 02:13, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the it.wiki article has been deleted not for notability reasons, but because the subject threatened to file a lawsuit, and the same could happen on other wikis (unless the articles are written by his supporters, of course). --Horcrux (talk) 07:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

just to rub the It admins noses in it. This is terribly sad... but not unexpected. One would like to label en.wiki community as excessively tolerant with this kind of disruptive commentary, same as it.wiki community has been labeled in colours on many occasions. But I won't do that, because labelling is petty. --Pequod76 (talk-ita.esp.eng) 08:25, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

No the problem is that admins were so focused on policing behaviour that they failed to notice that a group of editors were keeping the BLP as an attack piece. Wikipediots might like everything to be love and smiles on projects but what the millions of people who rely on Wikipedia would consider far more important is that when they look things up they find content that is accurate and balanced. The Orsini BLP was not balanced and all the admins who failed to check whether it was and who ignored the message from Danielep and Gitz that it was not are failing admins undeserving of the bit. Just look at how more attention was given to whether Danielep might have come to Wikipedia because of Orsini having said something on social media than on whether Orsini's complaints about the BLP may have been justified.--Dronkle (talk) 10:12, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Needless to say one of the administrators under fire had already removed one of the most contested details on 28/05. But I bet Gitz6666 never mentioned this. I bet also he never mentioned what happened when Danieleb2000 (they're b, not p) came with criticism about the article about Stepan Bandera. Vituzzu (talk) 10:45, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dronkle Again, what has to do en.wiki with the content of an overshadowed article on it.wiki? If you want to discuss the matter you are free to come to it.wikipedia. Friniate^talk 10:58, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

This discussion should be happening at Meta. Can we please move it there? QuicoleJR (talk) 19:43, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

On Gitz's unglock

Update: Gitz is no longer globally-locked meta:Special:Diff/25271948 meta:Special:CentralAuth/Gitz6666 but is still indeffed on ITWP, and Hypergio is no longer an admin, although the relevant log entry is hidden. (h/t well-known criticism site) Bovlb (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bovlb: I am really glad that @Gitz6666: is no longer globally-locked, his interventions on the Orsini talk were really professional and neutral: in fact all the sources he (and also other users and me, all of us were blocked) suggested have been meanwhile accepted in the Orsini page in english.

Unfortunately Gitz and me are still indeffed blocked on wiki.it

@Dronkle:, @Jayen466:, @Sänger:, @SashiRolls:

By the way, I would like to raise your attention on how much time and effort by so many users had to be wasted here because of a long series of abuse by some wiki.it admins, time that has nothing to do with a better quality of the encyclopedia. Unfortunately it is a common experience on wiki.it.

If those wiki.it admins would spend time and energy in complying with wiki principles and pillars and investigating the submitted sources instead of pushing their POVs, manipulating or even deleting talks, censoring other admins COI and intimidating and harrassing users, all of this would have never happened and wiki.it would have a better quality and more good contributors.

And a nice and neutral Orsini page on italian wiki would now be there, instead of being obscured.

I ping below some of the italian admins that were actively involved in the sad catastrophe of the Orsini italian page.

I hope they will learn this lesson for the sake of the wiki.it project, which is in danger due to their abuses.

@Actormusicus:

@Argeste:

@Fresh Blood:

@Friniate:

@Gac:

@Kirk39:

@M7:

@Quinlan83:

Danieleb2000 (talk) 22:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for the ping, Danieleb. I wanted to post here earlier but I'm happy to do it now.

My global lock has been lifted, and I believe that this outcome is due to the independence of mind and fairness of the stewards who reviewed the sanction (thank you!) but also to the support of the editors who raised concerns and asked pressing questions. This wouldn't have happened without forums like the Signpost, which started this discussion, and the Site-That-Cannot-Be-Named, where I was able to tell my side of the story and share my thoughts on certain issues of the Italian Wikipedia (the title I chose for the thread, "Italian abuses and vendetta", is not far-fetched). I have benefited from the work of those who created these forums and keep them alive, and I want to thank them warmly.

The outcome of my appeal is important to me personally. It was painful to read here that I would have "threaten(ed) a volunteer in real life" and that I would have made "threats like outing, threats of outing, contacts through workplace". I don't know what information has been circulated among the Italian admins, but these are shameful behaviours that I have never had. By lifting the global lock, the stewards have restored some truth and decency to an extraordinary story, rife with abuses of power and glaring mistakes, an unstoppable chain of events in which every blunder was followed by a bigger one.

To me the outcome is also important because it allows me to remain in a community where, in theory and often in practice, newcomers are welcome, editors who abide by the code of conduct can work freely, mutual respect and fairness are publicly cherished, and admins don't systematically abuse their functions to silence dissenters. Seen through Italian eyes, this is an extraordinary result, but it is not out of reach, and to achieve it one needs rules and practices that hinder the concentration of editorial power. The Orsini catastrophe would never have happened if we had had a properly organised system of requests for comment also on article content, WP:INVOLVED in force and respected, a procedure for publicly appealing blocks, the Arbitration Committee for desysopping, and an editorial culture that is willing to control and criticise authority. The lack of all this is bound to have serious consequences both on the quality of articles and on "the feeling of trust and safety that everyone here has the right to have." (cit.)

So the outcome of my appeal was important for me personally, but perhaps there are also lessons to be learned for others. I do hope that the Universal Code of Conduct and its enforcement mechanism will work in a way that preserves the good functioning of editorial communities such as en.wiki, while also setting out minimum standards for the benefit of projects where they are not yet generally met. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

There's no need to phantasize about the unlock. As a funny side note, a post from your most uncivil wikipediocracy wikilawyer actually slowed down the process since it accidentaly shared information you weren't supposed to know. The process actually started with your very first email to the VRT.

You shouldn't add anything the unlock message. Simply we set a high standard of safeguard, nothing more, nothing less.

Finally, for transparency sake, you should make people informed about your 2021 COI edits. Vituzzu (talk) 15:15, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vituzzu

Off topic: I remember you were involved in the Bandera discussion: please take a look at how ridiculously it has been reverted a couple of days ago:

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stepan_Bandera&diff=prev&oldid=134337967

even with "his persecuted family" mentioned in the incipit, a piece of information that should have no place at all in the incipit, together with other subtleties to push a POV and to make him appear as the good guy, while no other wiki does the same.

Once again it.wiki likes to be distinguished! Danieleb2000 (talk) 16:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The blatant problems of the article will be fixed, but it's no longer your business, I'm sick and tired of crusaders. Vituzzu (talk) 08:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vituzzu

Thanks for your comment, it shows perfectly to everybody how things work on it.wiki.

You are basically telling me that I am completely right ("blatant problems" that must be "fixed"), but that it shall not be my business because I am not a holy admin. Exactly the same scenario as in the Orsini catastrophe. Danieleb2000 (talk) 16:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

While I have zero doubt that this page and the criticism site were personally really important support mechanisms for Gitz, I am quite skeptical that anything posted here or there were what swayed the stewards into reverse the global lock. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vituzzu. With regard to the first part of your comment - about the uncivil wikilawyer who shared information I shouldn't have known - I don't understand what you're talking about. I'm not claiming it's insignificant, but I lack some necessary background information: who is the wikilawyer, what information did they share with me...? I truly don't get it.

With regard to the second part of your comment, however... well, that I understand perfectly and I can say with confidence that it is insignificant. It's totally irrelevant here, but is also quite funny, so I am happy to explain what it is about.

Since I had claimed, rightly or wrongly, that there were two serious and well-documented cases of COI editing among the Italian admins, Vituzzu replied with perfect symmetry by accusing me of two cases of COI editing. The first one was true, but dated back to 2014, when I had less than 2 edits on my back and knew nothing about conflict of interest, sockpuppetry, edit war or any other WP guideline and policy. The second one was in 2021, when I quoted as a source an article that I had not authored, but which had been published by Cambridge University Press in a book I co-edited. I might be wrong, but I don't feel that that was a case of COI editing: not being the author of the source, I had no external interest in having it cited on it.wiki. But isn't it funny that Vituzzu says that "for transparency sake" I should make you informed about this? Perhaps, after all, stewards should not apply glocks that are based on home-wiki incidents alone: some malevolent wikipediocracy critics might suspect that they are biased.

@Barkeep49. I have no reason to think that the Signpost/WPO had any direct influence on the decision to lift the global lock, but I do believe that they prompted Vituzzu to share some important information with me about the reasons for my glock. On 20 and 21 June, we had a significant email exchange. Until then, my requests for information had all fallen on deaf ears. So I believe that the Signpost/WPO had a big albeit indirect influence on the outcome of the case, because they allowed me to collect information and respond in a focused and pertinent way to the Italian stewards' allegations. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC); edited 17:29, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

In other words you threatened an user because they made what you did. Coherence, in short. Vituzzu (talk) 08:16, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

No, and you should know well, first, that I didn't threaten anybody - I've never said or implied "if you do (or don't do) this, this bad thing will happen to you or others". I merely reported on their COI, following the instructions received from the stewards themselves. And secondly, the user we're talking about didn't make what I did: their COI was not a case of WP:SELFQUOTE (assuming that I quoted a publication of mine, which I don't think is the case), but was more serious and widespread and impactful than that. But we shouldn't talk about this matter here, and the important point is another one: you didn't glock me for WP:SELFQUOTE, am I wrong? So why are you bringing this here? Please have a look at WP:ASPERSIONS. You're trying to undermine me, while after all you've done, I think you should just leave me alone. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:37, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You're simply lying. The second case I'm referring to was a selfquote, and you showed no hesitation in seeking for more information to be threatening.
Starting from the time you were blocked for socking to push your bibliography, going on to the time you were blocked for the parent alienation syndrome POV-pushing, to now, you have your agenda and reality and other people can be either functional to this agenda or enemies. Your reply is a huge QED: you'll go on labeling anybody having a negative view of your behaviour as someone with a "COI", a malevolent dictator, crooked, someone who doesn't know even basic principles, or someone who haunts you. Such excuses can't, however, change reality: when you get a speeding fine it's quite hard that speed traps are plotting your downfall. Vituzzu (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

For the second time, please mind WP:PA and WP:ASPERSIONS. I just want to put an end to this story and leave the troubles of your project behind me, but I will have no qualms about taking you to an administrators' noticeboard here if you keep on telling that I'm "simply lying" and that I have "threatened" somebody. Please behave professionally and be aware that T&S is already aware of your misbehaviour towards me.

Besides, you reveal a lack of knowledge of the facts of the case, which is regrettable given the amount of time you and Sakretsu have taken from me and other editors. Please re-read the email I sent to Pequod76 (I've already sent you the relevant excerpt in my email of 21/06/2023, 09:46, to the Wimimedia stewards) and you will see that the second case of COI was not selfquote. Selfquote was the way I discovered their personal identity. But if you google their full name, you'll find out about their profession, and then you will understand why I told Pequod to keep an eye on this editor when they edits some articles on certain political parties and legislative bodies. I was not reporting a case of WP:SELFCITE, which would be ridicolous, but a situation of COI editing that IMHO needs to be addressed, perhaps not by taking action but at least by being aware of it.

Please don't reply to this, unless you want to apologise, and leave me alone. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC); edited 15:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I just noticed: blocked for socking to push your bibliography. What?!? This never happened! It's even funny: you are completely misinformed! Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

you were blocked for the parent alienation syndrome POV-pushing. Nope, I was blocked for personal attacks [4]. It's amazing, you didn't get one right. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC); edited 15:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This is like the international festival of casting aspersions, and the extraordinary thing is that they are all demonstrably false! Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I struck through my Please don't reply to this, ecc. because I realised that after yesterday’s exchange, when Vituzzu revealed that he did not fully understand the content of one of my COI allegations, let alone its purpose, I have a question for him and also for the Italian bureaucrats Jaqen and Euphydryas.

At the end of May, I told the stewards that I wanted to report two cases of COI involving Italian admins, which I briefly described to them, and was suggested to contact the bureaucrats on Meta. I did so on 2 and 4 June and they did not reply. Now, I have a good opinion of Jaqen and Euphydryas (and also Civvì) and I am sure that they did not ignore me out of personal hostility – we never had any quarrels. I believe they had received some communication from an Italian steward, perhaps Vituzzu himself, about the content and purpose of my attempt to reach out to them, and perhaps they had also been advised not to engage in a conversation with me. Of course I could be wrong, which is why I am asking: am I right? Can you please explain what information you gave as a steward or received as a bureaucrat about these two COI? Did that communication reach all it.wiki admins or only the bureaucrats?

I think it was a missed opportunity that created a lot of misunderstandings and unnecessary drama. If I had had an exchange with Jaqen and Euphydryas, the content of my allegations and their purpose (threaten or help? intimidate or cooperate? ask for something in return or simply inform?) would have been clearer to Vituzzu and Sakretsu and would have allowed them to take better and more effective decisions regarding my global account. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@User:Gitz6666 Mi hanno fatto presente che mi hai citato, non mi risultano precedenti contatti da parte tua. In ogni caso rassicuro che non ci sono mai stati e nemmeno accetterei condizionamenti sul se, dove e a chi e a cosa rispondere. --Civvì (talk) 23:29, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

There's a blocked sockpuppet, with a single deleted edit: adding a work of yours in an article you were editing with your main account. About the second COI (to be clear, something which existed only in your hounding of just made-enemies), it is quite explanatory of your mindset on the wikis: rules and ideas and even facts can be bent if instrumental to your agenda.

Going on with the speed ticket analogy, you're basically asking me whether speedometer manufacturers are plotting against you along with speed traps ones. Conspirationism is usually a way to avoid accepting unpleasing facts, e.g. not receiving the expected (which must be positive) answer.

I can't wait for another reply of lies and gaslighting pouring more mess. Vituzzu (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Gitz already acknowledged above, on this page, that sock edit made nearly ten years ago that indeed added a work of his to a now-deleted article. (That sock was only blocked last month, nearly a decade after the event ... I think Gitz could be excused for not having been aware of that). And as COI edits go, if an academic published by Cambridge University Press adds a scholarly reference to a Wikipedia article that they wrote or co-edited, that is not high on my list of Wikipedia improprieties.

The thing with speed traps is that they are dispassionate and impartial. I think we have long passed the point where this could be said about the dynamics on display in this conversation. I for one think it is best to end the conversation here; it now generates far more heat than light. Andreas JN466 13:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed anyone who doesn't support Gitz6666's agenda or simply who doesn't care about this drama is neither dispassionate nor impartial. We had a PM playing the same game, with humongous success. I pointed out that old sockpuppet because he threatened an user for exactly the same behaviour, I pointed out his 2021 edits adding his works on wiki because he shamelessly told that 2014 sock was just old business. Vituzzu (talk) 17:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I notice you do not provide a diff of these threats you claim were made. I also noticed, just a moment ago, that there is not yet an Italian page about the law of holes. Perhaps someone could close this sinkhole for the good of all concerned? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 19:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

We have another one which fits more: we've been talking about emails for days, why do you ask for diffs? To me the email in question was a blatant threat, but I concur that its ambiguity makes it unusable as a proof, thus my disechanted support for the unlock. Vituzzu (talk) 13:36, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

That email, the "blatant threat", was not particularly ambiguous. It said (translated from Italian) "They can rest assured with me: I don't intend to tell their name to anyone outside WP, but I am alerting you to this so that you will keep an eye on them and let them know, if you think it would be helpful, that it is best not to self-cite and to stay away from articles such as X and Y". In every communication I had about this COI (with the stewards and two Italian admins) I always made it clear that I had no intention of disclosing their name, which in fact has never been published. I repeat it now, in case that user is reading this thread: don't worry, I would never do such a nasty thing, and as far as I'm concerned your privacy is safe.

Besides, with regard to that COI allegation, I was following step by step the instructions given to me by the stewards on 1 June. So when the Italian stewards glocked me on 9 June for "threatening and intimidating behaviour", it didn't even occurred to me that that was the behaviour they were referring to. I considered the possibility and quickly discarded it.

But I would take what Vituzzu says literally here: "To me the email in question was a blatant threat". I believe that Vituzzu and other Italian admins felt personally threatened not because of the content of my communication, but because they felt at fault, exposed and with a guilty conscience. They knew that what had happened with the Orsini article was not OK, to say the least, and my indefinite block was not publicly defensible. Their reasoning was then simple: "He wants to speak with us, what does he want? oh, that's so scary, so threatening, I'm felling threatened. Yes, I know! he is threatening us, the rascal".

Which confirms the eternal truth of Tacitus' maxim, "It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:57, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

This making up specious and false accusations to block users not liked by the holy it.wiki administrators seems to be not uncommon.

I have been (and still am) blocked permanently with the "assault" accusation only because on Hypergio's talk page I responded as follows to the users who wondered why he left (the comment was immediately deleted also from the history):

(my translation)

'For all those who comment below the section 'gulp' and may not be aware, Hypergio vanished after two articles were published on Il Fatto Quotidiano (the second of which [1]) suggesting a serious Conflict of Interest (COI) on Orsini's (later deleted) page, where Hypergio had intervened by banning user Gitz, as Hypergio is supposedly an analyst at Nci Agency, the NATO communication agency.

Unfortunately there has been no denial or admission of the aforementioned conflict of interest so far, as the rules of Wikipedia would actually require.'

I think the following Nietzsche's evergreen aphorism is most appropriate here:

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."

[1] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2023/06/21/dopo-le-proteste-ora-wikipedia-chiude-la-pagina-sul-prof-orsini/7201924/ Danieleb2000 (talk) 06:13, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

A couple of people have posted on my user talk page about broader problems with it.wiki. However, it's clear from comments made back in June that it would not be appreciated in certain circles if there were an effort by en.wiki users to sort out perceived problems with it.wiki. That really requires people who have direct experience of things at it.wiki to organise themselves just as people who experienced problems with en.wiki did when they set up the Wikipedia Review and then Wikipediocracy and engaged with journalists etc to draw attention to certain issues. Dronkle (talk) 09:09, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

A Question for Italian Wikipedia Editors and Admins

I saw that more conversations were happening here, alongside Gitz being unblocked on Meta. So, I had a question for the Italian Wikipedia people who supported the block of Gitz and others and were okay with the way the Orsini article was. I've been reading around various discussions in places about what took place there and one thing stood out to me as emblematic of the problem with Italian Wikipedia and I wanted to see if it was true or not. Therefore, Friniate, Actormusicus, Vituzzu, Pequod76, Phyrexian, and Fresh Blood (I'm excluding Sakretsu because they said above that they weren't involved in the Orsini article at all) my question is thus: On the talk page for the Italian Wikipedia article on Orsini, was it indeed commonplace for admins to remove or collapse comments linking to positive reviews and coverage of Orsini in reliable sources? For example, the positive academic book reviews? Silverseren^C 01:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Silverseren: as for me, that's enough.

It was a form of courtesy to come here and reply to questions which, just in case, were to be discussed somewhere else.

As an it.wiki sysop - and as an it.wiki user too, of course - I only answer to it.wiki community, which trusted me seven times.

I do not answer to pap.wiki, roa-rup.wiki, or en.wiki communities, nor do I in other languages but my mother tongue.

Therefore, if you want to discuss anything with me concerning my it.wiki edits and/or sysop actions, from now on, please come to my it.wiki talk page and feel free to ask me whatever you want in Italian. You will be welcome like every it.wiki user, if you started your local account; otherwise do that. In case you do not master the language, sorry, I do not take part in machine-translated discussions, so please get help from an it-N, it-5, or it-4 user.

Please also notice that I am a volunteer, like you all, and am currently engaged - let alone my real life - in writing articles, examining sources and many other more complex and essential tasks than blocking users, deleting or protecting pages, and so on. So please do not send me any further notification.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye, Actormusicus (talk) 07:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You will be welcome like every it.wiki user. Translated from Italian, this means they'll block you after a few exchanges, so beware Silver seren, I wouldn't engage them in a conversation that they don't want to have unless you are prepared to be blocked on their project. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

That's just bullshit and you know it. Friniate^talk 09:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Friniate, lascia perdere. Questo la dice lunga. That says it all --Actormusicus (talk) 10:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

No, it's not bullshit – it's a serious concern. Many editors have already been blocked for asking sensible questions and civilly making proposals about the Orsini article. Apart from Danieleb and myself, Oakwood is the example of a long-term contributor in good standing who was blocked for questioning your approach. As for the anonymous and newly registered users, I didn't keep track of how many you blocked. So if an editor of en.wiki wishes to continue this conversation on it.wiki, my sincere advice is that they do so as an anonymous user or SPA, unless they don't mind being blocked on that project. However, if you are really willing to explain to Wikipedians your handling of the Orsini article, why don't you start yourself a discussion at the "Bar" (local Village pump)? I doubt there would be a lack of interest. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Gitz6666

I am afraid that opening a topic in a bar is also useless. I was immediately blocked after I opened this generic topic related to the NPOV pillar under the bar for BPVs:

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:DiffMobile/133680966

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_progetto:Biografie/Viventi&oldid=133680966

Please note how civil I was, how serious are my arguments and questions and how collaborative I was (I mentioned many alternative proposals). Particularly noteworthy is that I was interested in general principles and pillars, therefore I never mentioned Orsini directly, nevertheless I was IMMEDIATLY BLOCKED FOR ONE MONTH as "monoscope user", a total bullshit with the sole and evident purpose to silence me since meanwhile I had created at least three other articles from scratch which had nothing to do with Orsini.

Please note also that none of my questions was even considered.

Please note finally that the italian admin who blocked me is not reachable via email, so I could even not discuss the block with him.

@Gitz6666: Danieleb2000 (talk) 16:31, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I can confirm, I was blocked for one week just for questioning the good faith of admins. It was deemed as "personal attacks"....

To me this is just plain censorship, to defend their 'editorial power'. Oakwood (talk) 10:06, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

@Oakwood: thanks for your comment, I perfectly remember your block only because you complained about their behaviour with me and in general on the Orsini page.

Some admins are incredibly arrogant (see for example this comment on your talk: https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Oakwood&diff=prev&oldid=133836634), it is a mistery how this is be tolerated by the community.

Meanwhile I have been permanently blocked on it.wiki just becaused I posted on the talk of the involved admin the "Il Fatto" article suggesting he could have a COI. They even blocked my email, so I cannot even contact any admin to protest against my block. Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:12, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

That was weirdly defensive, Actormusicus. If the answer to my question was no, I would presume you would just say that. So I can only infer that, yes, positive reliable sources on Orsini were actively removed or hidden on the article's talk page, further exhibiting the acts of purposeful bias by the Italian Wikipedia admin community. Silverseren^C 23:18, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Think whatever you want. This is not the place to discuss such an issue, nor the community qualified for doing it.

I said: please, do not ping me any more. Wasn't it polite enough? Spoiler: your ping wasn't. Actormusicus (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a brief factual clarification, @Silver seren. The answer to your question is Yes: comments linking to positive reviews and coverage of Orsini in reliable sources were collapsed. The first to do so, if I'm not mistaken, was admin Gac, who collapsed no less that four threads full of reliable sources immediately after my indefinite block. I don't understand why he did it: in those threads there were no off-topic comments, no personal attacks or flames, and one of them had even reached a consensus on the removal of unverifiable content. Then another user, Orangesong, arrived on the article talk page and posted several links to reliable sources. They were collapsed by Actormusicus, who explained (my translation) "I have been an administrator for six years and a user for almost sixteen, and I can assure you that contributing to Wikipedia is very difficult: everything that seems right to you at first, you learn over time that it is, more often than not, heavily influenced by your point of view". So only after a long process of purification can Wikipedians shed their POV and write impeccable articles like the one about Orsini. Orangesong did not agree, got angry and said unspeakable things: "you should behave in good faith and instead of locking yourselves in a fortress to defend an article, you should politely welcome newcomers, because everyone must be able to contribute" (here the thread). Of course they were indefinitely blocked by Kirk39. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Just one small remark @Gitz6666: the comment of Orangesong was reintroduced and collapsed only after he complained; initially it was even fully deleted from the talk. Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Silver seren

Collapsing and deleting comments was applied many times.

I remember pretty well that on the talk of Orsini at least two entire long topics (one of them with comments and sources from @Gitz6666: and me) were entirely hidden through collapsing into collapsible boxes; besides, a civil and collaborating comment of the new user Orangesong (now permanently blocked) who found really interesting sources (some of them neglected until that point, one of them previously even deleted from the article by one admin) related to the Orsini book was immediately deleted from the talk with this noteworthy "motivation":

---------------------

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Orangesong&oldid=133748950

Translation to english:

What I think, I said it and I do it: from now on every time I draw attempts to alter the WP:CONSENT by single-purpose newly registered in the wake of "complaints" from the interested party:

# I cancel the interventions

# I block utilities until WP:COI declaration on voice and discussion', as I am about to do with yours.'

---------------------

This shows how much WP:BITE and WP:AGF are respected on it.wiki.

Another noteworthy case is the following one, were my comment on the talk of Stepan Bandera was deleted from the talk without any motivations:

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussione:Stepan_Bandera&diff=prev&oldid=133625198

My comment contained just some proposals to integrate a part of the article which in my opinion was (and still is) quite far from being neutral (and a comment from Vituzzu somewhere in this talk confirm this: "(...) The blatant problems of the article will be fixed, but it's no longer your business (...)").

All these cases are IMHO clear WP:TALK violations by admins, since no off-topic or personal attacks were in the comments in the talks.

@Silver seren:

Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong nor strange in thinking that some articles are weak. Anyone eventually has their own opinion to be evaluated against sources, it's a long and time-consuming process.

Btw Silverseren, following orsini's BLP re-creation I didn't care about an article which I still think is not notable (and it's quite easy to see that I coherently think the same for academics of the same profile or people sharing a sudden visibility in TV shows). I'd say that the conspiration against orsini characters list is a bit imprecise. Vituzzu (talk) 18:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vituzzu

What is "wrong and strange" is the deletion or collapse of comments in the talks, which happened routinely in many situations, not only for Orsini.

For example, in the Bandera case, where I was harrassed and then censored and finally blocked without having changed any words in the article but only for my comments in the talk, one of which containing a proposal to improve the incipit was completely deleted:

https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussione:Stepan_Bandera&diff=prev&oldid=133625198

Or when I raised a topic on the behaviour of an Admin because my mere doubt of neutrality on the Orsini page was removed: my topic was also immediately deleted and therefore not discussed at all:

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:DiffMobile/133531895

And these are only two examples among too many. Danieleb2000 (talk) 08:34, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The second revert had been justified tho. Vituzzu (talk) 14:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Vituzzu

That was not a real justification:

1. I already tried for a long time to solve the conflicts
2. The request was explained with extreme politeness
3. It is true that I had wrongly deleted the links 1..4 (which I realized only some days later, when I was again blocked so I could not fix it), but an admin willing to help (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Always_help_out_users) could have told me how to properly do it or could have himself restored them adding my request at the last point.
4. by many admins there was never the willingness neither to solve any conflicts nor to discuss: this is confirmed by my block for one month as "monoscope" (ridiculous allegation, I created meanwhile other 3 or 4 new articles) when I raised a more generic topic on BPL, again with extreme politeness and exactly to try to solve conflicts: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussioni_progetto:Biografie/Viventi#Pagina_BPV:_Pilastro_WP:NPOV,_principio_WP:CONSENSO_e_priorita'

Regarding the first revert on the Bandera talk, it was kept without justification. Danieleb2000 (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Trawling through this entire mega-thread months later, the main question on my mind is why on earth (and how it has ever happened) that WMF permits it.wikipedia to be run this way. It appears to be antithetical to WMF's interests and the public interest. I now shudder to think how bad things must be at various other Wikipedias with even less of an editorial pool and public scrutiny and WMF attention level.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Quite. Even the French and German Wikipedias have more issues of this ilk, problems that in my estimation were largely ironed out in en:WP by about ten years ago. As for smaller Wikipedias ... Andreas JN466 14:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish Incidentally, Alessandro Orsini (sociologist) gets a lot more views than Alessandro Orsini. I'm not sure what the correct procedure would be for moving the former to the latter, and the latter to Alessandro Orsini (cardinal), but given the difference in pageviews it should be uncontroversial. If you are more au fait with this aspect, I'd be grateful if you could do the necessary ... if not, I'll look into it. Regards, Andreas JN466 14:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that's a pretty straightforward WP:RM request, though it involves using the multi-page move parameters. I can do it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Done. PS: It's weird that the it.WP article on him is still blanked. WTF is going on over there?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish Thank you so much! Andreas JN466 18:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: It's weird that the it.WP article on him is still blanked. Nothing is impossible, but it's unlikely that it.wiki will have an article on Alessandro Orsini in the near future. If you look at it:Categoria:Pagine protette per minacce legali you will find pages blanked for legal threats going back as far as 2008 (e.g. it:Roberto Fiore (politico), here Roberto Fiore) and for legal threats not followed by legal action (e.g. it:Fiamma Nirenstein, here Fiamma Nirenstein). I don't know how it works on other WMF projects and I don't understand why it.wiki users are so worried about legal actions. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 19:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Because defamation laws in Italy are especially bad and expensive, and I guess because wmf:Legal:Legal Fees Assistance Program has never been put to the test. Nemo 21:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Italian critics

Where are the positive academic reviews favoring the book expressed by Italian critics in Orsini voice on our wiki? I cannot find them. Do we have a bias maybe?--Julius.it (talk) 09:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Julius.it

To the best of my knowledge, no noteworthy academic reviews from any Italian scholars have been found, neither positive nor negative. So there is no bias here. Danieleb2000 (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Dear Daniel, I really appreciated your effort providing information, but you are not well keen in his actual condition. There Is already one review reported in the article, plus we can add that this dociologist won a price (not the top, but enougth for a special WE in a thermal country) so definitively somebody in Italy read his book and commented. He is an opinioni maker on the National broadcast, so, even in the worst case of only negative review, some comments have to be made about him. He cannot be a glass man in Italy. We can touch this our bias that need to be removed as any other discrimination from Wikipedia. Julius.it (talk) 21:01, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Julius.it

Hi Julius, it is already mentioned that he won an Italian prize, with a bidirectional link:

"(...) The work went on to win the Acqui Award of History (...)"

To be honest, unfortunately I cannot grasp exactly the rest of your comment.

As I said, personally I could only find and propose (many) positive reviews by non-Italian scholars: why should the nationality matter?

Anyhow, other editors (in particular Jayen466) made an even more extended investigation about the reviews: maybe you can ask them. Danieleb2000 (talk) 21:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Daniele Dear colleague, denying the undeniable reality of the sun doesn't change the state of affairs; it remains as it is. You only risk, despite yourself, becoming an unheard voice, deemed unproductive for effective collaborative endeavors, devoid of prejudice.

In your previous statement, you wrote that "to the best of my knowledge, no noteworthy academic reviews from any Italian scholars have been found." However, it is evident and verifiable by all, through reading the article, that there is at least a review by Guido Panvini, presented and accepted for online publication on the website of SISSCO (Italian Society for the Study of Contemporary History), whose authority I presumed you were familiar with. As discussed in the article's talk section, it is implausible that this book did not receive attention due to its subject matter. Given that the Red Brigades constitute a painful and controversial aspect of recent Italian historical memory, peculiar to this nation and not shared with others, it is paradoxical. Speculatively speaking, even if we were to discover that no one in Italy took the book seriously and, therefore, no one bothered to review or comment on it, the fact would be so exceptional that it would merit a mention in the article. This would serve to adequately and cautiously explain that the article is not afflicted by an Italophobic bias or, worse, ethnic discrimination in seeking and using sources to write and enrich our Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I seem to observe a strange reluctance to address this discriminatory issue that runs counter to the inclusivity required of us. The nationality matter if not inclusive.

Regarding the Acqui Award of History, there isn't much to say. According to Google, there are hundreds of Italian literary awards, so let's round down for simplicity and peace of mind and limit the analysis to the fact that there may be around a hundred relevant awards, with many others often having a regional character and serving as glossy tourist promotions. Apart from that, where would you position this prize in the ranking, from fifth place to one hundredth? And what is the reasoning of the evaluation jury behind awarding the prize to the book? Knowing this would certainly be important for the article and might help understand the discussion surrounding the book. Best regards.Julius.it (talk) 10:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This conversation really belongs in the article talk page. I do have a problem that the article gives more space to discussing who likes and who dislikes the book. Of more importance is explaining Orsini's approach to the sociology of terrorism. The reviews and other secondary sources main value is in highlighting which parts of Orsini's writings are considered by other academics etc to be the most important features of his approach. But please reply on the article talk page, which I'll have to look at again. Dronkle (talk) 11:14, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I am somewhat surprised by the invitation to discuss elsewhere, considering that this entire discourse stems from the issue of crafting betterv the entry for Orsini, a matter yet unresolved even in the major Anglophone wiki, as observed in the references provided above and the messages I have received on my talk page. On the contrary, a discussion about Bandera, an entirely distinct subject from Orsini, is being introduced in this post concerning Orsini. Julius.it (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Epilogue: 2024 steward confirmations

 Comment: Community members interested in this affair may want to be aware that it has been brought up in the 2024 stewards confirmations that started today, including new (I think) allegations about doxxing in connection with the talk page discussion above (m:Stewards/Confirm/2024/Sakretsu, m:Stewards/Confirm/2024/Vituzzu). Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Can you please amend the inaccuracies in your message? Maybe you didn't notice that five hours before this message I'd already proved that the alleged doxxing never happened (the user in question discussed in talkpages about their identity). Also, it was nothing new. Vituzzu (talk) 20:05, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

As I read HaeB's message, it appears accurate. Allegations about doxing have clearly been made. These allegations appear to be new, in the sense that they do not appear to have been aired publicly before and not (I think) in this discussion. @Vituzzu I think you'll need to clarify what you find to be inaccurate here.

"I'd already proved that the alleged doxxing never happened" — I see that you have denied the doxxing allegations and have provided some evidence in support. I suggest that you stick to pointing out those facts and leave it to others to determine whether this is "proven". Bovlb (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry but I must insist it's proven: a rev can't lie. Vituzzu (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Update:

• Vituzzu has now been removed as a steward, due in large part to the kind of obfuscatory, misleading and combative communication style of which his inaccuracies claim above was just a small example. (While I didn't actually vote in his confirmation myself, I think this is the right outcome.)
• Sakretsu has been confirmed with what several stewards called a "weak consensus", after (finally) answering some of the unanswered questions about the Gitz6666 case and acknowledging that There's no doubt I underestimated the complexity of the Gitz6666 case, and in hindsight I should have assessed the situation better and should have consulted fellow stewards as early as possible, before doing any actions. [...] I also didn't realize at the time that there might be concerns over my homewiki being itwiki. So maybe there is some hope that this kind of incident won't happen again.

In both cases, an interestingly high number of "keep" votes came from Italian Wikipedia admins.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bovlb @HaeB I got here from the confirmation page. It seems to me that this discussion of Gitz666's case is bringing to light some aspects of the Italian community which should really be more widely known. Since privacy and Vituzzu are being discussed, let me point out that already a couple of years ago I wrote an open letter to the Board of Trustees pointing out problems here.

I did not mention Vituzzu explicitly there, but it is no secret in the Italian wiki that I was referring to his abuses in his CU role, as confirmed at the time by the Ombdus Commission, see the portions of text in English in this page. The three stars *** in that page stand for Vituzzu, they were placed by another admin for "privacy reason"! Isn't it fun? As a side comment, that same admin blocked me indefinitely because I voted against Vituzzu's confirmation (or, better, in his words, because I had premeditated to vote against Vituzzu; do you see what the level is? Voting against Vituzzu is like murder on the Italian wikipedia). The attitude you see here is 1% of what they usually do there.

(I am commenting here and not in the confirmation page because I guess I am not an eligible user)--LuxExUmbra (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Holocaust and Polish nationalism: Critic proposes history advisory board

Well, the similar idea of advisory board was mentioned in the WMF Human Rights Impact Assessment (p.26) previously Develop a Content Oversight Committee (COC) to review content with a focus on bias and have the ability to make binding editorial decisions in line with ICCPR 19.. I think the suggestion of inviting experts who only give 3rd opinion to editors is a good idea. Thanks. --SCP-2000 14:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

In a deeply divisive topic area like this, it will be very hard to find a neutrally composed advisory board that will not itself be deeply split. As for excluding Polish scholars, note that Haaretz – a green source at WP:RSP and a great paper in general – is sufficiently committed to neutrality and balance to host the views of Polish scholars associated with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, or the views of someone like Daniel Blatman. The idea that Wikipedia should de-platform such academics along with Polish American scholars like Richard Lukas and restrict itself to parroting the views of scholars Klein approves of seems absurd to me. Andreas JN466 19:48, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

This might actually work in resolving disputes and arbitral decisions, but in extremely contentious topic areas there is nothing to say it that it won't lead to academic conflict itself, like the Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair. Gotitbro (talk) 15:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

News and notes: WMF Terms of Use now in force, new Creative Commons licensing (2,849 bytes · 💬)

The headline mentions "new Creative Commons licensing", but I'm not seeing any explanation of that that new licensing is, or how it will affect me? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

See https://creativecommons.org/version4 for an overview of what's new in Version 4.0.

Note however that the sui-generis database rights mentioned on that page don't apply to Wikimedia projects. The new Terms of Use include a specific waiver:

Where you own Sui Generis Database Rights covered by CC BY-SA 4.0, you waive these rights. As an example, this means facts you contribute to the projects may be reused freely without attribution. Andreas JN466 12:46, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

You may also see the legal note by WMF Legal Team and the detailed comparison published by Creative Commons. Thanks. SCP-2000 14:29, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

TL;DR. I still have no idea what this is all about; it's just all mind-numbing legal mumbo-jumbo. My understanding: 3.0: you have no rights. 4.0: you still have no rights. In other words, nothing changed and this is just an exercise allowing lawyers to collect more legal fees. I know that I just edit at the pleasure of the Wikimedia Foundation, and they have all the rights, including the right to ban me at any time, for any reason, without explanation. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

You have the right to start your own wikipedia if you don't like the way WMF is running things. The right to fork is the right that all freedom springs from. Bawolff (talk) 07:12, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I want to inform you that there are (in Slovak) the reports of violations of CC SA-3.0 and violations of the GFDL and reported on legal@wikimedia.org. --Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 10:54, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Terms of use—I clicked on BrEng and found "Practice" as a verb. Really? They need copyediting. Tony (talk) 13:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Recent research: Hoaxers prefer currently-popular topics (2,209 bytes · 💬)

For clarity's sake, the abstract for Sihame Assbague’s paper (“Wikipedia, or the discreet neutralisation of antiracism”, doi:10.3917/crieu.021.0140) does not appear at the paywalled link on Cairn.info, but I was sent a copy of the paper, from which my translation of the abstract appears above. The original French reads:

Journaliste et militante antiraciste, connue notamment pour son travail sur les crimes policiers, Sihame Assbague a observé l’évolution de sa fiche Wikipédia. Elle y remarque des erreurs, des approximations, parfois anodines, souvent destinées à lui nuire, et constate la quasi-impossibilité de les rectifier : la communauté wikipédienne lui demande des sources impossibles à fournir et ses détracteurs bloquent ses modifications. Elle décide alors d’enquêter sur le fonctionnement de l’« encyclopédie libre » dont les mots d’ordre sont : liberté, autogestion, transparence et neutralité. Mais ces principes sont-ils applicables de la même manière à l’article « Poireau » et à la page d’une personnalité antiraciste ? Que veut dire être « neutre » à propos du « racisme systémique » ou du « racisme antiblanc » ? Et qui rédige ces notices ? Plongée dans les rouages de la plus grande encyclopédie du monde.

— OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 13:00, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

• About the hoax article creation analysis based on outgoing links: Is it not possible that the hoax creators might themselves have contributed to pageviews that they are linking to (sock farms et al.)? I think this should have been matched with off-wiki interest spikes on those links as well to see if further internet-wide virality is influencing their creation. Gotitbro (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)