Requests for comment/Abuse of Administrative Rights for POV in Azeri Wikipedia and More...

Abuse of Administrative Rights for POV in Azeri Wikipedia and More...

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Hello, I am based in en.wiki[1] but also have interest in az.wiki in a sense to transfer ideas from en.wiki to az.wiki. My work basically includes creating templates and translating/setting up working rules in analogue to en.wiki. I have taken part and encouraging users to translate Media Wiki software into Azerbaijani[2]. I also occasionally edit articles, adding interesting or uncommon facts(with reliable sources) to articles in az.wiki. My all work in az.wiki is to help it improve using my rich experience in en.wiki. Editors there either use tr.wiki or ru.wiki in adopting ideas which in turn adopt from en.wiki. This is because az.wiki editors practically don't know English with exception of one or two. The only accessible sources for them are either in local language, Azerbaijani, or in Russian both of which historically for national purposes have been politically loaded. This fact turns out to be a serious problem in az.wiki to grow as a Wikipedia-first principle of which is NPOV[3]. My attempts towards fixing this problem or at least rising awareness of this problem in az.wiki has caused a catastrophic reaction which I describe below.

Administrator Irada in az.wiki has been in dispute with me for the last several weeks. The dispute started when I added this image(please look at the image description) to the article about Kurdish people in Azerbaijani. Irada and her(identifies herself as a female) agenda, Sefer azeri, Proger, E-citizen, and Cekli(an admin in az.wiki and who as a result of dispute did this semi-vandalism in en.wiki), all of whom from the comments seem to be ultra-nationalists, constantly reverted me. Their reasoning was that Nizami Ganjavi must not be included in that image claiming him being an Azerbaijani poet and of Azerbaijani origion, a fact which is straight propaganda since it is not supported by any reliable neutral sources. Not paying attention or respecting number of scholarly sources which I provided and showed his Mather was a Kurdish women so nothing was wrong in listing him as a person of Kurdish origin, they all stood against my point of view with the majority of votes rather than providing sources. During discussions I was exposed to abuse and hatred such as implying me being a shameless(Həyasız[4])representative of kurds who try to steal "their" cultural values[5]. In subsequent discussions seeing failure of herself in supporting her point of views with the reliable sources, she blamed me in abuse and blocked me for the period of 1 week(an action, if justified, in worst case must have been taken by an active participant of the dispute bureaucrat Sortilegus let alone a person who is in dispute!). After the block, as an experienced user in en.wiki, I investigated her behavior further and filled a report requesting revocation of her administrative rights[6]. I found her not being aware of fundamental principles of Wikimedia and even disrespecting them. As an example, when I quoted to "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth[7]" I was laughed at and told if that was true, then she would leave the wikipedia[8]. I can go on forever with such facts. After this, while there was an ongoing discussion regarding the revocation of her administrative rights, she again blamed me in abuse and blocked me for the infinite period of time. Note that the time between my filling the report about her and getting blocked by her is roughly 12 hours. This shows that such a person with administrative privileges has strong influence on contributing community and is a serous problem for a Wikimedia foundation project. This also is an indication of a serous problems in az.wiki from which the foundation should be aware of.

I checked her RFA and it turned out she was given such a privilege out of bunch of careless votes. The nominator (Mehrdad, a former bureaucrat) says "Looking into her past activity, I think she can be useful with this right to fight vandalism in the future" - No special qualifications whatsoever and the rest "a community who by nature doesn't question the higher authority" voted YES! But a fact from the opposing user(maderibeyza) needs a special attention as it is consistent with the current behavior of the person in question. That user doesn't think she(Irada) deserve adminship because of her comment[9] which reads "Why don't you sit in tr.wiki. What brings you to az.wiki? [...] Because among your works I don't see anything defending Azerbaijani history, culture etc, I don't understand your work here(i.e. az.wiki)." And she goes on "An article about Azerbaijani heroes in ru.wiki has also disappointed Armenians. Since the discussion with you reminds of my "edit wars" in ru.wiki, never contact me" (With this translation, and any that I will do in the future, I understand and feel responsibility of any kind for any inaccuracy in the meaning).

Once again this and what I observed during very intense discussion with her have led me to conclude that she and her agenda think az.wikipedia.org is a national host for politically loaded info about Azerbaijan. Anyone who tries to put a non-bias info, he/she is labeled as enemy and eventually kicked out of the community by this group. I should also mention that, I strongly suspect some of these people are even colleagues in real life and it is a fact[10] that all of them are based in the same physical location and know each other.

To conclude, I am requesting (i) Irada's administrative rights to be revoked, (ii) a global admin to be assigned to monitor az.wiki, and the less important one (iii) to unblock me. None of these actions should be expected to be taken by local administrators since they all physically know each other. P.S. I have previously mentioned in az.wiki the possibility of taking the problem to meta if it wouldn't be resolved locally and I have put all the efforts to resolve locally. Since I am banned from az.wiki, I am unable to let them know about this report. Thank You, Gulmammad 03:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Note that this administrator has been seeking support from meta to block me after didn't get support from local bureaucrat Sortilegus[11] and after I expressed the possibility of discussing the problem here[12][13]. Gulmammad 04:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Another evidence on why this person cannot be administrator is in rush now she is trying to adopt a new rule supposed equivalent of No personal attacks. That is not exact or even close translation of the one in en.wiki. It is modified in a way to allow administrators to take any action on their will. In talk page she says[14]:In az.wiki in the case of vandalism only anonim users are blocked for infinite period of time.[...] But in en.wiki for one or two reverts users are blocked forever.[...] In ru.wiki who reverts administrators is blocked without any priory warning. This shows that by blocking IPs(anons) forever for a single vandalism, she prevents access of many many future potential editors who share the same IP. For the one about en.wiki, to make her point she is giving wrong info who doesn't have an access to en.wiki due to language barrier. Finally, the one for ru.wiki, if true, that would mean Joseph Stalin is back and is a very influential admin in ru.wiki. Gulmammad 18:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments

This user was blocked for insulting for other users in az-wiki. See: [15]--Irada 05:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Here the discussion is about you and your actions. No-one else has blocked me besides you. So don't talk like a third person in the discussion. The diff you provide shows your attempt to get support from meta to justify your unjustifiable actions. You use the admin tools to make your point. You banned me such that even I can't edit my user page and using my inaccessibility to the discussions you are running a campaign against me in az.wiki. You tell users that I am insulting/abusing all az.wiki editors[16] and asking them not to respond here. I have had content dispute with admins in other wikis several times but none of them behaved like you. With admin tools you are a danger for the community. I am sure, to make your point, you have silenced lots of good users in this way and it must end here. Gulmammad 02:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

There are 4 active admin in az-wiki at the moment. 2 of them have made you warning because of you behavior but despite this you was going on insulting users. [17], [18] All participants supported me when I blocked you, and none of them asked me to you remain you in az-wiki.

Here I asked the participants not to continue discussion in the meta. As you've mentioned that all participants of az-wiki do not know English they wanted to show their English language knowledge.

You even deleted all the text from your page. [19]. And according to the rules it’s not allowed driving the discussion. The rules of debate are not met here [20] and I'm not talking about your remarks. I hope all discussion will be read.

I and my colleagues have turned a blind eye to many of your actions. We hope that you will understand that you are incorrect. But when you began to conflict with everybody I had to make a decision as an admin. I was supported by many of the participants in that decision and nobody said that I did something wrong. --Irada 12:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you provide quotes with their translations showing me insulting others rather than beating about the bush? Then we can discuss their details to any extend that you want. The first diff you provide is by an admin and active side in the dispute Cekli(who as a result of dispute did this semi-vandalism in en.wiki) adding my name to the list of users under supervision. The second diff is by Sortiligues. After you yelled at him asking why no-one supported your POV[21] he was forced to leave an unjustfied warning on my talk page. In no-way you can justify your action of banning me from az.wiki. You use the admin tools to push your POV. And yes, I cleaned up my talk page knowing this rule. So may I know what is your point? You say the rules of debate are not met here. Can you tell us what rule is violated and how? Please show us a word or phrase with its translation. Gulmammad 21:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)