Hi User:I_JethroBT_(WMF) hope this finds you well. Due to delays and scope change we have few modifications to make that effect the project proposal. We had late start with outreach work due to delay of the conference and reduction of Workshop to short intro webinar. Then we got cought into end of the year and holliday season. Also I personally experienced hostility on HR Wikipedia that still prevents me from effective work. If you do not mind I propose extension of at least 3 weeks with few modification (including scope from HR to SH, WD and Commons) or putting the project in hibernation for some time and revisiting later in 2022. If this is not an option we can report on activities and the current state of work in January and leave it at that. Thank you and have a fine winter break --Zblace (talk) 12:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also I personally experienced hostility on HR Wikipedia that still prevents me from effective work.
What about your behavior on hrwiki - multiple admins have described it as hostile:
6136215: This range, between hyperactive Ivi who is pretending to play a superhero and rescuing hrwiki from 30 women and HrW_initiative, entering 'bad' and barely 'relevant' content and 'threathening' the project (!), leads to the fact that one person (+ an enciter CROXYZ) is dictating the dynamic and the atmosphere on the project.
6133878 Ivi104 rides again (to ride: vulg. jargon - to have sexual intercourse)
6114332 Thank you for 'fixing' the article by removing all criticism and controversy. It is now truly ready for Metapedia.
6137831 Dear (srwiki admin) I am glad you are here with Aca, as one of two srwiki admins, so that I can no longer easily be accused of serbofilia.
I will not go into discussing this in details with Ivi104 here, as we have had these discussion on HR (where also number of users and admins disagree with his hastly actions all through 2021), but I will indeed confirm that differencies of opinions on what is POV, COI, paid editing, Wikimedian in Residence and many more are to high for me to be productive (especially as HR has no regulations on much of this). So while Ivi104 is an admin, Croxyz is priviledged user and with Aca is adjunct team mate (as generational Discord buddy), where between them is 'easy to decide' what articles... I keep distance. Enjoy the HR as it is, while you can. --Zblace (talk) 10:51, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
where between them is 'easy to decide' what articles, sources and new editors are shitty
Zblace, you know that I really appreciate all your motivation and your good faith, but please notice that right now, in this moment, we (= the hr.wiki community) are discussing about new hr.wiki criteria in a RfC (= the RfC is almost about be marked as resolved), because the absolute majority (actually, probably the entire community) agrees that the current notability on hr.wiki is horrible. According to the current hr.wiki criteria (version 6130574 as of December 4, 2021 at 13:47) we would have to delete probably 70% of the articles. There won't be such drama anymore as soon as we fix the hr.wiki notability. In the meanwhile, there was even a Reliable sources/Noticeboard established on hr.wiki. Best regards, Koreanovsky(Ča–Kaj–Što?!)13:00, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for checking in as non-conflicting HR admin. I appreciate it. I am glad to see that process of establishing rules is happening for HR at least now, but only after I was attacked on multiple unrelated issues (read: excuses) and after non-admins intervened with both miss-conduct of Ivi104 and with proposals for resolutions. Meanwhile I have super vague topic ban until end of 2110?! So much for the HR admin situation and practice.
Also please notice what I wrote initially here and what Ivi104 did and was asking for! This is one more reason worth removing him from Admin position, but as long as you are 3-4 active and not 13 admins as listed, I understand you will not give up on him. But that is your economy of sustainabiliy. I will save some of my productive energy for other wikis and other work. --Zblace (talk) 13:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone, for those of you not aware, I'm Chris, a program officer at the Wikimedia Foundation. I support our funding programs for the CEE region and related discussions about proposals we fund. Before getting into this issue, I have removed comments from Zblace and Ivi104 on the basis of violating our behavioral guidelines for discussions regarding funding, and have contacted them about the concerns. With that aside, I am needing some additional context around this situation before I can respond to this request from Zblace:
Actions like blocks and topics bans are important factors when it comes to funding decisions, and it is important for our team to understand the substance of why they have occurred. Can you confirm if the topic ban decision was made based on this discussion that you initiated, or were there other discussions or factors involved? For clarity, please link to any discussions that directly led to the topic ban decision.
Who implemented the topic ban? Was this a decision by a single admin, a community decision, or some other process?
Please summarize the topics that the topic ban includes.
You wrote on Zblace's talk page about the length of the topic ban: Zabrana traje do uvođenja smjernice COI (that is, "until the COI guideline is introduced"). Where is this COI guideline being discussed or worked on in the community?
What is the relationship of the RfC Koreanovsky described to the COI-related concerns here? When this RfC is concluded (which it sounds like it will be soon), will it help establish the COI guideline that is related to the topic ban or is it unrelated?
@I JethroBT (WMF): Thank you for reaching out and helping to resolve this!
Zblace has been writing about people he works with (mostly activists and feminists), non-notable topics, associations he is directly involved with, and he is citing sources from his project sponsors with no regards to their objectivity and reliability. When issues with these articles were corrected or the articles were deleted, Zblace would violate civility policies and involve himself in edit warring in an attempt to restore the article to his version. One particular patroller, @Croxyz:, has corrected a significant amount of Zblace's work, and Zblace raised an ANI request in an attempt to prevent the user from continuing to correct his work, citing content control, targeted supression, and the like.
in an attempt to prevent further conflict, Zblace was warned on the impropriety of such behaviour, was given instructions by several admins on his talk page, the Village Pump and ANI, regarding what was acceptable and what was not. This did not deter them in continuing like nothing was said.
In an attempt to prevent further violations, I added Zblace's most used biased sources into Spam-blacklist so they could not be added to more articles. This was not recieved well, and a discussion was started, citing censoring, supression and misuse of admin tools. In retrospect, I agree I should've consulted the community before implementing such a far-reaching change.
User's behaviour was potentialy against ToU:
These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.
... and Zblace has failed to state their involvement with these people and associations. Since the discussion was rather lengthy, and there was no apparent consensus on whether the user's action constituted a violation of ToU or not, I started a regular vote on wether or not to impose a permanent topic ban on topics of civil society and social action in Croatia, in an attempt to prevent the user's obvious conflict of interest.
This discussion was even lengthier and even more heated, and with no consensus, so in an attempt to settle everything down, I proposed the topic ban be imposed only until COI guidelines were introduced. This decision was well met, with only one oppose vote, so the topic ban was implemented and remains in effect.
The guidelines are being discussed in an ongoing RfC.
If you should have any further questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you once again for looking into this! —Ivi10421:22, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@I JethroBT (WMF) I would like to clarify this part "Zabrana traje do uvođenja smjernice COI" of your questions because I was involved in this, as an attempt to de-escalate the situation. It is a measure agreed upon between Ivi104 and even Zblace as a temporary measure (until WP:COI is agreed upon in the hr.wiki community). That temporary measure replaced permanent topic ban Ivi104 unilaterally imposed on Zblace, which was too harsh (Ivi104 agreed and changed the initial permanent topic ban measure to temporary), especially considering the fact that hr.wiki does not have WP:COI in place which would regulate contributions made by Zblace. The argument is that until we have a consensus about WP:COI on hr.wiki nobody (including Zblace) should not be tbanned for not following the rules we do not have. Temporary measure (tban of Zblace), agreed upon by Zblace, was there to allow the community to try to deliberate WP:COI without distractions, and as soon as WP:COI would be agreed upon, tban would be lifted. For now, I would not like to go into much more details (I'll asnswer any questions though), but please bear in mind that AFAIC nobody can claim that Zblace disregarded any of the hr.wiki policies regarding WP:COI because there are none. IMHO personal grievances (that are obvious) should not be entertained when deliberating serious matters like this grant. Imbe hind 💊15:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Extended policy discussion beyond the scope of this proposal --I JethroBT (WMF) (talk)
In the absence of local COI policies, global policies still apply, and ToU applies regardless. This discussion on COI is at this point only that, a discussion. A draft of the COI policy has not yet been drafted, pending community consensus in the discussion. The topic ban will, as agreed upon by the community, remain in effect until the local policy supersedes it. —Ivi10418:28, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Global policies NEVER apply automatically on local wikipedias. And even if they did, you did not present any evidence Zblace was in breach of any of those policies. Furthermore, the topic ban was not agreed upon by the community, but was unilaterally imposed by yourself in addition to putting several highly reliable LGBTQ+ sources on spam list, so those couldn't be used. There was a gentlemen's agreement I mentioned before. The deal was that you will back off on Zblace and Zblace will avoid civil society topics until WP:COI was ready on hr.wiki. I guess that for a gentleman's agreement you need gentlemen on both sides. This is a witch hunt and personal vendetta or worse (LGBTQ+ suppression). Imbe hind 💊12:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Global policies always apply if there isn't a local policy to override them, and ToU always supersedes them both. No community may elect a policy that is not in line with ToU. If that were not the case, then Kubura would have no reason to be globally banned and he would be free to do as he pleases even now. As one of many examples, Zblace is clearly in breach of these policies since he is directly involved with various organizations he is writing about that promote LGBT and feminist rights (without disclosure), and has been found citing sources of this grant's sponsors, with no regards to their neutrality, objectivity and reliability regarding the subject matter. He is also writing about his coworkers. All of these have been proven. The topic ban was given to a vote linked above, and was imposed after consensus has been reached. The consensus was not unilateral since there was one oppose vote. The sources he uses are not highly reliable since they are written much like blogposts, and therefore lack objectivity and critical opinions - not to mention it's authors are directly involved in matters they are writing about. This is not neutrality, not reliability and not objectivity. I fail to see suppression in enforcing equal content rules for everyone. —Ivi10402:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give me a quote from global rules on this: "Global policies always apply if there isn't a local policy to override them"? Until you do, it's just your opinion. Just as it's your opinion that "All of this has been proven". As I said before, even if global rules would apply, there are no evidence for your claims. What is evidently true is that you should have excused yourself from dealing with Zblace, since you are in clear violation of WP:INVOLVED - the one policy we do have on hr.wiki, unlike WP:COI, WP:ToS and even WP:TBAN which are still missing on hr.wiki. Imbe hind 💊11:00, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
m:WM:PAG clearly proves both my points above. The evidence has also been provided both to the community and to the admins. mi2.hr is clearly not a publicly available domain, as evidenced by its DNS records - it was started in 2011. and is registered in Preradovićeva 18, and belongs specifically to Klub Mama / Multimedial Institute, meaning any mail addresses from that domain belong to employees of the Institute. This proves Zblace's COI without a shadow of a doubt. As for my supposed involvement, since I have interacted with Zblace only in an administrative role and have made no biased edits in the content area, and have given Warnings, started reasonable discussions and explained the rules and community norms as well as given suggestions for improvements and approaches, I am clearly not involved, as explained by en:WP:INVOLVED. Any admin who opposes Zblace's blatant violations will immediately be labeled as involved, but that is simply not the case, my interest in this issue is purely professional, as it is my job to hold everyone equally accountable to rules and policies. —Ivi10416:45, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I said before, and you chose to ignore, I also had a mi2 email address, and had it way before 2010. Yet, I never was an employee or in any way collaborated with mi2. In addition, Zblace publicly negated employment or any current affiliation with mi2. Especially a paid one. You did not provide any followup evidence that he is wrong. So, naturally, your actions after that can be interpreted either as a personal vendetta or a gross incompetence. Fell free to choose which one. Imbe hind 💊18:14, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The domain was first set up in October 2011. There is no way you have an e-mail address with the above domain way before 2010 as you claim. Since you have provided no evidence of this supposed e-mail address, and Zblace himself has provided evidence of his own e-mail address clearly connecting him to mi2, my evidence stands unchallenged. Your claims of a vendetta or incompetence are therefore a pointless attempt do disprove my claims by discrediting me instead of defeating my argument - which is a clear violation of en:WP:NOPA — Comment on content, not on the contributor.—Ivi10418:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The domain is not setup in October 2011, but way before. You can check here [1]. The report is not free, but there is a mention of "12 years of historical Whois records. (since Jan 5, 2010 to Oct 17, 2021), and 14 years of historical screenshots (Mar 18, 2007 to Oct 5, 2020)". I might add that the record is not complete, because I'm fairly certain I've used mi2 email in early 2000, not mid. So much for competence. I would like to add that email address is personal info, I do not wish to share it with you, and you should know better then ask for it. In addition, Zblace providing mi2 email is evidence of just one thing - he has (or had) mi2 email. The paid contribution part you are accusing him of is non sequitur. For instance, I have multiple gmail email addresses. Are you implying I'm a Google employee? Please, stop this nonsense. You are not a policeman, nor you have credentials or tools to investigate your fellow wikipedians. The only "evidence" is publicly provided by Zblace himself - an act of disclosure you somehow perverted. Imbe hind 💊03:20, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @I JethroBT (WMF): There are currently two active RfCs on hr.wiki. The one I said is about to be resolved soon, is only about the criteria for hr.wiki articles (the current criteria is really, really outdated and bad). The 2nd RfC is about finally introducing the policies and guidelines that hr.wiki is not having (= there are really many) but hr.wiki is urgently needing them since it is the "most basic infrastructure". This 2nd RfC is also about finding a consensus for a guideline about Conflicts of interest and paid editing on hr.wiki. There have been a lot of discussions about such topics like topic-ban, conflict of interest and paid editing in the village pump, but since nobody really knows how to intervene in a correct way or how to treat such cases (as said, we are not having the most important policies and guidelines, we do not even have a blocking policy and never had one!), I decided to open the RfC, so everyone can write their ideas, proposals and opinions. Basically, when this RfC is resolved (it might take a little bit until that happens), we will hopefully have a guideline for conflicts of interest. Best regards, Koreanovsky(Ča–Kaj–Što?!)20:48, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion on conduct and good faith beyond the scope of this proposal --I JethroBT (WMF) (talk)
Just for the illustration of the kind of practice Ivi104 does: While doing this 'discussion' on the project of Iskorak.hr he is also demanding a deletion of its HR Wikipedia page (oldest active LGBTI+ organization in Croatia) obviously as an act of [supression], using arguments that it only has 3 facebook reviews, hence I guess irrelevant (note: page exists since 2013 and was not changed much since). This is not the way Wikipedians should act, let alone Administrators. --Zblace (talk) 05:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My reason for deletion is clearly stated as: does not satisfy criteria: sources listed in the article are primary sources, blog posts and news articles that do not include significant coverage of the topic. The association also almost no presence (only 3 reviews on Facebook). It is not obvious to me how this is an act of suppression. —Ivi10408:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, we are all supposed to assume good faith. The en.wiki en:WP:GOODFAITH behavioral guideline even states: "Although bad conduct may seem to be due to bad faith, it is usually best to address the conduct without mentioning motives, which might intensify resentments all around." Instead of that, you are accusing Ivi for (active) supression in your comments both on meta and also on hr.wiki, and you even mention how "Ivi104 is directly antagonizing". As it already was said multiple times in the hr.wiki village pump, it is really, really, really hard to defend you with such behavior. If Ivi just deleted this article without a word, I would somehow understand why you think that way, but this is obviously not the case. Ivi has proposed a deletion and stated why. Now users can discuss this proposal, name what they believe needs to be fixed and build a consensus about that. There are indeed problems with that article, an articles needs to have neutral, thrid-party (non-involved) sources for the content and not the website of the topic itself. All that has to be done to rescue this article is the citation of thrustworthy, neutral sources - that is literally everything. And when the topic is really relevant, then it is not hard to find such sources. Also, "time" is not an argument for anything. Just remember what kind of stuff used to be all these years on hr.wiki until 2020. "The article existed since 20xx" was also not (and would not be) an argument against the deletion of all the POV-articles. Once again, I do not get what this has to do with "suppression"? --Koreanovsky(Ča–Kaj–Što?!)13:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dear @Koreanovsky: - this is not the first time you defend him, but as you quote EN Wikipedia please check out what is en:WP:Sealioning. Also please read what is my first post on this page and what 'kind request' is his! Than tell me again - how exactly I am to assume 'good faith'? I am all ears. --Zblace (talk) 14:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Koreanovsky: Hope you realize you are making this comment on the page that is discussing project Wiki_Rainbow_Health_in_Croatia, not deletion of Iskorak... And by posting here and this way at the start it is Ivi104 that broke behavioural guidline (noted by WMF here)... --Zblace (talk) 15:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Disregard? Suspicious? Not at all. I am making my work more explicit while using Meta and real name than most for almost 20 years in Wikimedia. Anyway we did get very similar input, only Ivi104 is HR Admin who claims to know better, yet fails to practice rules regularly and broke those first. As for deletion request of Iskorak it was just an illustration of what and how Ivi104 does, it is not essential...many of those on HR. --Zblace (talk) 19:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @I JethroBT (WMF):, I apologise if I interpel here, as I see Ivi104 and Koreanovsky are being addressed, but if I can have your permission I would like to present my point of view of the conflict between Zblace and Ivi104, as I am one of the administrators of HR Wikipedia who took part directly in discussion. We have had multiple users (especially new ones) experiencing wiki harassment by Croxyz. In recent months this especially escalated in at certain moments and with specific types of users and content that Croxyz finds problematic as systematic deletion practice. On the WikiOna event wiki marathon by Roda.hr where most of the content (during or immediately after) was either marked for deletion, blocked for publishing including Ivi104 changing the translation workflow so that there is no way to publish relatively new users (during the first few hours of event). Few of us intervened to save around 40 articles from deletion and bitter experience that new female contributors had.
In terms of quantity and quality most of the articles were filling huge gaps and were doing it with translations from EN (as for notability confirmed), with few local and new that were all but one (recommended for integration into others) were useful and beneficial. Ivi104 also without consultation with other admins introduced spam filter blocks to sources that are not only not spam, but also valid enough and included organizations that promote our core values or Croatian Gender Equality Ombudsman. [2]
Ivi104 made claims of COI (without proof), misinformed judgement on paid editing (counter arguments presented by steward Martin Urbanec) and on Wikimedian-at-residence status, for which we also do not have rules and regulations. This created an under informed witch hunt atmosphere on Discord without proof, but mostly based on the domain of email address Zblace is using that ‘connects’ to one NGO (employment from more than 15 years ago).--Dean72 (talk) 13:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, what Dean72 says is true. From now on I would treat all actions by Ivi104 as his personal vendetta against Zblace. The topic ban for Zblace has never been approved by the Croatian wikipedia community (topic ban is poorly regulated there, plus only two regular editors voted for it: Ivi104 and Croxyz), and no proof has been given — other than Zblace's e-mail address on a (once) semi-public mi2.hr server — for his COI with respect to "ALL Croatian civil society topics" (COI has to be more specific, to a single organization; Zblace does not benefit from ALL Croatian civil society organizations for sure). In fact, Zblace is being accused for writing on topics and activities (quite benignly, truth be told) that WMF might have been providing funding for: on the Croatian Wikipedia page he wrote about an edit-a-thon that he organized, which started the whole witch-hunt craze. Ponor (talk) 03:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to take a closer look at the entire scenario, so I can expand my knowledge about it and maybe help to slove it faster and better. I also want to leave a few questions here. In the end, call me a "badmin" but it is my honest opinion that some people are taking this waaaaaay to personal. But seriously. Discussing on this meta page will, in the end, probably have no positive inpact on hr.wiki, but since there is the illusion that "meta is allmighty", let it be like this...
I will agree with Dean that the behavior of Croxyz was very problematic.
The more I scroll the diffs, the more I realize that Croxyz, at some point, just seemed to be reverting a lot that Zblace added in various articles. In some cases even without a discussion. That is just who it seems to me, when I take a look at some diffs.
However, as I already wrote in the hr.wiki village pump on December 12, 2021: Any user will be blocked (not only Croxyz) if they continue with such behavior and it seems like Croxyz, after my comment was published, finally stopped with removing sourced content (atleast I nobody brang anything to my attention about that). If anyone starts again removing sourced content, they will be blocked, that's it! And I am not going to add input to this, since we are not here to show that we are right! To me, the "Croxyz case" seems solved, but I have to admit that is understandable how and why Zblace must have felt, at some point, like someone is "sabotaging" his work. Atleast it only seems like this to me, I am not saying that it is like that. But: If Zblace continues with incivility (especially personal attacks over little disagreements, which was also seen on other Wikimedia projects), I will also intervene. The policies and guidelines count for everyone, not only for one user.
When it comes to the COI, I am honestly not really informed about the topic itself, I have only read a lot in the English Wikipedia rules and I have proposed a lot of ideas, but I really do not get all the scenario.
Basically, in my understanding, someone believes that another users is in a COI, but something prohibits the publishing of evidence?
The only thing I understood is, if we have no rules about this on hr.wiki, we have to act according to the WMF Terms of Use?
It would be good if an expert could explain what would be the right intervention when there is the belief that there might be a COI - and what kind of evidence is allowed to be published on-wiki.
But back to hr.wiki and the "Ivi case". I took a very close look to the scenario and I have to admit, yes, Ivi's intervention is indeed very controversial and it is understandable why people view it as problematic, no doubt. In my honest opinion, it would have been a bit smarter to solve this in a local RfC, since there are not COI rules yet on hr.wiki, but that will change soon. In the end, what happended, happended and we can only change the future, not the past. So, in my opinion Zblace's topic ban needs to be removed, especially since the COI-rules are being discussed and proposed right now in this moment. When we finally adopt our local rules, everyone who is or might be in a COI, will have to stick to the rules. And anyone who wants to make changes to the COI rules, should also inform the community if they are in a COI or not.
On December 13, 2021 I have posted my idea about solving this in the hr.wiki village-pump and it seemed like we followed it a little bit - even if most of us were unaware, but we skipped the first step! The first step was, removing the topic ban: In dubio pro reo.
@Koreanovsky: Your insights and cool-headedness are appreciated, but I do not believe this will resolve the overreaching issue of such behavior continuing. This discussion has become sidelined in more ways than one. The original argument I opened up with is Zblace's hostility towards users who do not agree with him. This issue has not been addressed. All further issues have arisen from that initial one. I have tried communicating with Zblace multiple times, calmly, to try and reach a common ground. Each time he responded with aggression. Croxyz has also tried communicating with him, and Aca, and numerous others - always to the same effect, aggression and dismissal of all our concerns, along with personal attacks and claims of suppression. Until we address the underlying issue of communication, our work here is not done. In dubio pro reo does not apply here since the issues described are not in doubt. You yourself have agreed that Zblace has crossed the line more than once. We always postpone blocking him, and he always takes it as a go-ahead to continue on. Since Zblace is not open to correcting his aberrant behaviors though communication, other methods needed to be explored - topic bans and blocks. I would also like to hear your propositions on what exact actions to take to address persistent communication issues, COI issues (until the COI guideline is deployed), and what have we learned from this to prevent such occurrences from escalating too far next time? —Ivi10418:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion over hr.wikipedia project policies and concerns over conduct --I JethroBT (WMF) (talk)
So basically you admit that the only reason for this which hunt is the fact that Zblace "responded with agression" at one point in time? How else to read this pearl of yours: "All further issues have arisen from that initial one". Thank you for the clarification. But you even continue to clarify: "Since Zblace is not open to correcting his aberrant behaviors though communication, other methods needed to be explored - topic bans and blocks". So, since Zblace did not behave the way you thought he should, you invented COI conflict so you could impose TBAN's and blocks? Thank you very much @Ivi104 for your confession. Imbe hind 💊03:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have made no such admission since there was no witch hunt in the first place. You are twisting my words to suit your twisted theories. Zblace has persistently responded to assistance and clarification with aggression, so instead of help and calm discussions, we are forced to place limitations to achieve the desired goal - his compliance with content rules and prevention of COI-influenced disruptive editing. My expectations of his behavior are wholly irrelevant, the only thing that matters to me is that he abides by the rules - both behavioral and content ones. —Ivi10404:12, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(picture from en:WP:LISTEN with the caption: "There's nothing wrong with my editing!"); constructive edits are not an excuse for personal attacks.
Hi Ivi, thank you for the fast reply - as already mentioned in the hr.wiki village pump:
When it comes to blocking, hr.wiki has become very tolerant, even a bit too much. Why? Well... We will all agree that blocks aren't ment to make people "pay" and should be something to prevent harm (aswell to content or contributors), there is not doubt here.
However, in early 2021, after the "new hr.Wiki-age" (oh, dear... how does this sound?) some people have started "revolutions" over the smallest admin-actions and even the shortest blocks for incivility have been discussed and treated like it's the most important question. Some people, aswell on- and off-wiki, have "yelled" that admins "are all the same" etc., etc., etc. Some people even argued when it came to blocking users with constructive edits. I think I do not have to go on with this. This was the main reasons why many active hr.wiki admins are not even WP:BOLD enough to block someone, who has obviously has behaved incivil. I will not change my opinion when it comes to blocking people for incivility. If an user (speaking generally), no matter how constructive his or her edits are, commits personal attacks or shows any other type of incivility on the project, the user will (and should) be blocked - without any excuses. Personal attacks are personal attacks, and even if we have no official blocking policy yet, the Croatian "no personal attacks" policy allowes us sysops, to block people for personal attacks (see: hr:Wikipedija:Bez osobnih napada#Način rješavanja problema). If you are in a dispute with that user (or have been in the near past), I would personally recommend you to report the PA on the admins' noticeboard and let a "neutral, thrid party" intervene. If I notice that one user (not matter what happend so far) behaves incivil, you can be very sure that I will intervene and not be quiet anymore, even if some people might accuse me for "tool abuse" with the argument that "all admins are evil". This comments is my last warning to everyone who commited personal attacks in the past and completely got away with it.
When it comes to COI, it is something very, very, very complex. Yes, the local policy is still being built and will hopefully soon "come to power", but since entire December 2021 was full of discussions about this, we will need a temporary solution for the next days or weeks, until the local policy is adopted. Technically, we could 1:1 intervene like the ToU says, but this will lead to more and more new fights in the community. Maybe we should try to find a fast consensus for a very short temporary guideline, that says:
"contributers who are editing for pay, have to disclose who is paying them, who the client is, and any other relevant affiliation like it is mentioned in the en.wiki policy" but "this does not stand above the policy against harassment and revealing the identity of editors against their wishes is strictly forbidden".
(...) and what have we learned from this to prevent such occurrences from escalating too far next time?
What I have learned is: We will probably need a written policy, that says: "always use the RfC first and do not name names when you want to adress a huge (possible) problem in the community". I think that we all, when we notice some actual irregulation on hr.wiki that do not have any regulations (policies), like the whole COI drama, should first start a RfC, with explaination to the community "that this and that" could be a case on hr.wiki (but the affected users should not be named at first). So we can all build a regulation for the problem without anyone "getting hurt".
@Koreanovsky:Thank you for update on your position and (unfortiunatly semi-wasted) time on researching this this during winter hollidays season. I understand that after 10 years of very explicit hegemonic, crude and agressive rule in HR by compromised Adminstraors it is hard for HR Wikipedians in 9months to switch to recognise more sophisticated micro-agressions and relativly recent strategies of sealioning, especially in times of pandemic and limited time-energy-focus. I really appreciate you took the time for this. I hope other (semi) active admins will also.
When you call me up for communicational issues please note that I am on and off the wiki doing a kind of pioneering work both topically and organizationally for HR Wikipedia and Croatia, while being explicit and transparent about my real name and queer identity (note that HR Wikipedia has hardly any people with real name use, including right wing antagonists). Once others become more engaged and this is disributed better overall balance will be different.
Also note that I am on Wikimedia for almost since start (September 2002) and my Simple block was due to 3 day dispute with a user that already had multiple blocks (actually enough for global ban but was pardoned by Vermont a year earlier) and by people who went around series of Wiki projects supressing my work without checking anything of content (our region is hardly notabble for anything in general, let alone for queer content) and local wiki rules (this why I was protected by local communities on Wikidata, Commons and SH Wikipedia, just not on Simple where I lost patience). I never claim I am the most diplomatic or submissive to 'authorities' when patronizing to me (in non instructive) observeations, especially as these people are identify with HR project as 'guardians' but are under-informed and prsumptious... Once the community governance is brought to a higher level the preassure on me will be (hopefully) reduced and I will feel better, having more patience for more formal and sustained response, even when provoked, knowing that you can recognise what are micro-agressions or passive-agresive behaviour and not just formalized Bonton with disruptive content and actions. --Zblace (talk) 18:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Zblace - no need to thank me!
Yes, we all know about the (sad) history of hr.wiki and we all understand that the "development" of the project was suffering for too long, so that we "have to" (= Wikipedia is a volunteer community = not compulsory) do everything in a very short time, while other communities have discussed the same things in almost 10 years (while hr.wiki did not really have the ability to build consensuses like other language editions till late 2020).
I am well aware that you are involved in something very awesome and important, that is introducing Wikipedia to people in Croatia outside the internet, and even if it sounds like a lot of fun, I can imagine that it also can take a loooooot of energy and sometimes be very stressful, especially if you are giving instructions to many newcomers. If you say that the pressure (or let's call it "Wikistress") became so much that it has an... rather negative effect on your communication, I would personally recommend you to take a break from editing for atleast a short time, so you can better regenerate your energy. Wikipedia is a hobby and not something that should cause stress to it's users.
I am familiar with what happend on simple.wiki at the begin of 2021 and I have to admit, the scenario came to my mind when the proposal for a deletion of an article on hr.wiki caused similar drama a few days ago. There is an essay on en.wiki: Existence ≠ Notability. I am mentioned this because I want to let you know that you really do not have to worry about (LGBT-)content being suppressed or anything on hr.wiki. In 2020, Ivi104 was between the first people to openly help out the LGBT-contributers and users on hr.wiki, who wanted to fix and improve LGBT-themed articles. That was somewhere when the first "Wiki workshop" in a LGBT center was announced. Keep in mind that backthen I was, not only not an admin, but also still between the sceptics of this, who worried that it might result in something "promotional". When my worries turned out to be non-sense and false, I even helped to launch the LGBT Wikiproject on hr.wiki, even if the topic plays absolutely no role in my life. The majority of all active users is probably against any type of censorship on hr.wiki. Wikipedia is not censored and not ment to be. Someone might always propose the deletion of an article of a topic that might mean a lot to another user, but this does not mean that someone is trying to censor such topics on the project, trust me. Soon we will have new, better criteria for notability that will make it even easier to write more articles. Especially when we remember that basically almost every 2nd article could be deleted because of the current criteria.
We all have to behave on-wiki and stick to all the behavior guidelines. Off-wiki communication is something different, but you know what I mean. Like, I was also very bothered during last month because we had so much drama on hr.wiki, but this does not give me a right to do something against the WP:CIVIL rule. If an admin would show incivil behavior and commit personal attacks, just imagine how huge the riots would be and how many people would scream "tool abuse" and "all admins are evil". I am not saying because I want to annoy you or anything, I am saying this because I know from experience that you had a friendly and civil communication months before. You will not make new friends with a rather aggressive communication over a disagreement, that is why we all have to assume good faith, stick to the WP:CIVIL rules and not commit personal attacks - even if the situation is very frustrating us. With friendly communication, it is much easier to WP:COOL down the entire situation.
Currently, the COI rules are being discussed - along with other important rules (deletion policy, blocking policy, new editing guidelines, the expansion of the policies and guidelines page et.c) that hr.wiki is lacking. If the current situation is really making you feel uncomfortable on the project, I would recomment you to take a little wikibreak, atleast if you want that. When we have those important policies in guidelines, the entire situation will be better and you will always be welcome to work on hr.wiki in accordance with the policies and guidelines.
Zblace has already confirmed he has nothing against full disclosure about COI, once the COI disclosure procedure is established on hr.wiki. Also, as you may remember, Zblace is the one who always announced his actions and campaigns beforehand in the Village Pump even when there was no COI concerns within the hr.wiki community whatsoever. To attack this person for somehow hiding his COI and moreover, for getting covertly paid for his contributions is, I'm sure you'll agree, pure insanity. Imbe hind 💊03:33, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Dear User:Koreanovsky this is a long reply and I will try to be brief for the benefit of getting to sunny Sunday exposure...
I know things are not black and white with LGBT+ or Women gaps (even Kubura and its team of 3 co-admins were at some points making pages and even photos of alternative culture and LGBT+ events to add to Wikipedia + most ultra catholic contributors also make Women in red biographies, mind you mostly saints and nuns)...but this was just too close to be accidental.
I also know you turned from sceptic to supporter more than once. I deeply appreciate transformative potential. I also know that there are people like Vermont who even identify on LGBTIQ+ spectrum, but also make statements that render them priviledged and less sensitive to other supressed intersectional experiences. We need to keep evolving. Me also.
Please note my focus is not (only) content but (more) community and capacity building. Many of the LGBT+ WikiProject people + new female participants have either dropped off fully or have reduced their activity after initial negative experiences. We have only few chances to keep new people involved and older not burning out.
As for my personal close to burn-out in 2021 it is something I am well aware (after 3 interaction days on Simple in spring, casual global lock in August and autmn of supression), so I really do not plan too much Wikipedia content work in 2022 (my first message was very specific about moving and distributing focus to other Wikis, esepcially Commons and Wikidata), but I also do not want to leave with a feeling that I did not move things enough for a change in community+capacity building, as this is something people pationate over grammar (bless them for correcting me) and rules (bless them for translating to HR) too often fail to notice, than aknowledge and never center!
Everyone knows that moving the middle in Croatia is what makes huge difference. This is where you need to do more. My work was actually on softening the feminist and queer edges at times (that HR never got to see (sr)), as well as tons of GLAM preparation work that was never done and will only surface in 2022. Anyway - lets try to close this and move this discussion in more adequate namespace and urgency than here and now. Please note that my initial request at top of this discussion was not addressed by almost anyone at any point except from vague aqusations by Ivi. --Zblace (talk) 09:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Martin Urbanec could you please give advice (or just move) this off topic escalated discussion? Should this be separate subpage or at least collapsable comments somehow for overview? --Zblace (talk) 10:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the conversation here does not concern the grant. There are many people involved in this grant which have nothing to do with all these elements and might be suffering from it. Furthermore most of this is editorial concerns and has nothing to do in a grant submission involving training of newbies.
I have been known on fr-wp for opposing paid editing and being at the same time engaged in removing gender biases also on working on LGBTIQ topics. I would be willing to serve as an external advisor to the grant to check that there is no COI on this if Z.Blace would accept the principle. I am a member of the commission for conflict of interests of Wikimedia France so I think I do have experience on this and I come from a wiki which applies strict notoriety criterias to articles.
All this to ensure constructive criticism (anyone can improve here even the way the criticism is adressed here can be improved for the sake of keeping a healthy community) from both sides. All criticism is legit, but flooding a discussion page is not the way to do it constructively. Witth wiki love, Nattes à chat (talk) 11:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for joining in with external reflection and offering assistance. Sure I would not mind, though COI and notability is not questionable in this project (and was rather vague relation to my historic work). Best --Zblace (talk) 17:19, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone, and Happy New Year, though I am sorry the new year has to begin with this kind of conflict. First, thanks to all of you for your comments and feedback here (@Zblace, Ivi104, Koreanovsky, Imbehind, Dean72, and Ponor:) regarding the situation. I am currently on vacation this week, so I am not able to review and address the extent of discussion here. Not all of it is immediately relevant to this funded project or the proposed change, as some of it reflects ongoing policy discussions on hr.wikipedia regarding COI and other community policy matters as well as the topic ban itself. The Community Resources team does not intervene in these discussions, as these matters are for volunteer communities to develop and decide upon on their own based on the needs for their project and community. The topic ban for Zblace still appears to be in place at this time, and so to the extent it affects the proposed grant work, we are not able to support funded work that requires Zblace to edit project content on hr.wikipedia related to the topic ban until it expires or is removed. If that should happen, please notify me here or e-mail me at ceeca_rapidwikimedia.org.
Zblace has proposed the following: If you do not mind I propose extension of at least 3 weeks with few modification (including scope from HR to SH, WD and Commons) or putting the project in hibernation for some time and revisiting later in 2022. I am inclined to accept the proposed change to avoid issues that the current topic ban would affect. If this topic ban is overturned at anytime, any grant activities that require Zblace to edit the project could resume without issue, though the decision for whether to edit there or not is up to the discretion of the grantees based on these circumstances, and is not required. The new end date for the grant is 21 January 2022, with final report due on 21 February 2022.
I also acknowledge there are concerns here around Zblace's conduct in areas where there are content-related disagreements, and that this issue has come up before. However, I also note there are concerns and ongoing discussions here around admin conduct around these very issues on hr.wikipedia, as well as some concerns about the topic ban itself. This is a complex situation that would benefit from community discussion and decisionmaking on important policy areas discussed above. If there are additional conduct-related issues related to this or other topic areas in the future, this persistent issue will need to be addressed before the applicant is eligible for additional funding in the future, regardless of what Wikimedia projects are involved. It is important to remember that we hold grantees to high standards and expect them to serve as role models for others in the movement. However, to the extent there is significant community disagreement with an administrative decision to block or topic ban an individual, this will affect our decisionmaking regarding eligibility. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for accepting the modification of the project proposal, keeping the discussion and context of this at least somewhat comprehensible and I am sorry that this took time of from your vacations, with abrupt and messy urgency for a few of us.
Request for no-cost extension till 15 March 2022[edit]
Due to unforeseen circumstances in January we would like to request an additional extension of the project. There were family and health issues that resulted in cancellation of events planned in January which we would like to reschedule to February. Also, we are facing low response and lower interest from targeted populations. We are planning additional outreach and promotional activities at no additional cost.
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