Proposals for closing projects/Deletion of Esperanto wiktionary

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This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.

The proposal is rejected and the project will be kept open.

  • Type: 1 (routine proposal)
  • Proposed outcome: deletion reset
  • Proposed action regarding the content: selected small parts to Incubator or other home, remaining large part to dev\nul
  • Notice on the project: Beer Parlour NewsBox (will be visible ot title page until pushed down by newer news)
  • Informed Group(s): none yet

Proposal to reset (close down and delete) Esperanto wiktionary (type 1)[edit]

Short justification: failed wiki, lack of community and contributors, lack of valuable content, dominated by piracy and emptiness, permanent harassment

  • Informing the local sysops: NOT needed as none such exist
  • Informing in the local Beer Parlour and the newsbox on the title page: done
  • Editing SiteNotice: not possible due to lack of rights

The eo wikt started in year 2004. Now it contains ca 100'000 pages in the main namespace. Unfortunately, this count consists of ca:

In year 2010 User:Pablo Escobar acquired permanent sysop rights at eo wikt, although being permanently blocked at Spanish wiktionary and German wiktionary at that time for notoriously inserting nonsence into those wikis. There were ca 1...3 "support" votes, and one harsh critical comment without an "oppose" vote. Retroactively this must be considered as a blunder.

Between 2010 and 2020 Pablo was the seemingly most active and valuable "contributor". Unfortunately, Pablo's contributions consist almost exclusively of copyright infringement ie piracy (lemma pages, templates, modules) and empty stuff (empty template calls and similar). I joined the wiki in 2017 and at that time the wiki was "big" but largely broken and almost "empty measured by content". Most templates were German and had either no or German documentation (some were Spanish, Russian, or English instead). Pablo has never been able to code templates, even less modules. Ey broke several of such by puristic and incompetent changes. The underlying policy was apparently "create the most complete wiki by copying everything from everywhere". The result was a desperate mess.

I started working on the wiki year 2017 manually, and year 2019 additionally using a bot. Other bots had been there before, partly doing useful work, partly creating useless "1:1" pages from over 100 years old dictionaries. I was even sysop during 2 terms per 1 year. Two months ago, 2021-Sep User:Vami emerged. I posted even a a welcome message about this user (retroactively this must be considered as a blunder of mine), and next day Vami began to harass me. Upon arrival, "Vami" had less than 200 global edits, but soon began to do advanced template edits (no other user had been able to do so before), and started a bot a bit later. Well, either Vami was an exceptional beginner, or "Vami" is just a new sockpuppet of an old LTA. Vami began to discover various flaws and broken stuff in the wiki and ask about that. The curiosity quickly evolved into dissatisfaction, indignation, and finally hate and loathing, against me, because I was the only available villain on the spot! The insults and crassly false accusations include among others:

  • idiot
  • nazi
  • terrorist
  • "you must go to school"
  • "you are stupid"
  • vandalism
  • total destruction
  • not understanding the language
  • not being able to code
  • piracy and plagiarism

I tried to keep a polite tone towards Vami all the time but this can't continue like this to the infinity. After ca 3 weeks I dared to block "Vami" for 24 hours. The block would have come sooner and been longer anywhere else. Vami reacted by escalating the conflict to "meta". The outcome so far is me and Pablo desysopped, and my bot (temporarily) banned, whereas Vami's bot operated via the main account is not banned nor criticized.

Vami's attitude towards me passed the point of no return long ago, and reached a fanatical degree. Vami assumes that the wiki was perfect in 2017 and I have destroyed it since (the opposite is true, partly). It is impossible to recover the complete wiki in the state of year 2017, put it besides the state of 2021-Sep and complare the amount of breakage. Vami's goal is to destroy me (presumably ideally even physically), and revert everything into the supposed perfect state of year 2017. This includes all my work to remove pirated content. It takes just a few seconds to insert pirated stuff into a wiki. Open other dictionary, select all CTL-A, copy CTL-C, go to eo wikt, paste CTL-V, click submit, done, a bold green size difference with 4 or 5 digits will award your "work". This has been done on several 1000 pages by Pablo. But it is almost impossible to remove such piracy. Vami has not introduced any piracy, but become the defender of piracy inserted by Pablo, against me. The fanaticism includes that Vami will always revert, obstruct, oppose and report to "meta" anything that I do, because it is just me, the villain Taylor. Vami's investment of time into this absurd "defense war" exceeds the amount of time originally invested by Pablo when inserting those illegal pages probably by more than factor 100, and Vami wastes my time as well. This is not collaborative building of free content, this is just fanaticism and attrition warfare.

There are 3 RFC:s about the eo wikt:

Piracy is a violation of the WMF TOS. If such cannot be removed ("Vami" will always obstruct, revert and oppose, and nobody else is there), then the wiki must be closed. If nothing happens again, then the WMF TOS is a farce. The contributor who will suffer the largest loss of work in case of a deletion is me.

I will withdraw this proposal (or if withdrawal is impossible, change my vote from "support" to "oppose") if:

  • the content consisting copyright infringement gets removed reliably, within reasonable timeframe, and with minimal wasting of human resources, either by me, or by someone else
  • some authority (WMF, stewards) makes a clear statement how to deal with piracy (large-scale copying from identified copyrighted dictionaries, large-scale copying from unidentified presumably copyrighted dictionaries, large-scale copying from other wiki without attribution)

and

  • the harassment stops

Maybe some will consider the proposed "deal" above as inappropriate, but WMF TOS prohibits both piracy and harassment. If this ends up with no result (piracy not deleted, harassment continues), then the WMF TOS is a farce.

There were two more users who have complained about this piracy: User:Robin van der Vliet (made the very earliest complaint) and User:Psychoslave (originator of one of the RFC:s). They both have been recently mostly or totally silent, nobody knows why. Intimidated by "Vami", or whatever.

There are two parts of the eo wikt excluded from all said above. It is the "separate" English-Esperanto dictionary created during many years mostly by User:Noelekim, the most valuable part of the wiki, consisting of ca 28 pages plus ca 5 templates and modules. Before the eo wikt gets closed, this dictionary must be moved to a new home. The other part are contributions by User:Kotavusik. They are to be moved to incubator before nuking the wiki.

The eo wikt must be closed down, because it is dominated by piracy and harassment (both violation of WMF TOS), it lacks useful content (it is not useful to have "backup copies" of other wikis in eo wikt), it lacks community and contributors, and is a systemic failure that can't be fixed anymore by other means.

Votes[edit]

  1. Support as the proposer Taylor 49 (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose and completely and at least until the end of the investigation of all actions User: Taylor 49. /Va (🖋️) 12:16, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose huge proposals like this one shouldn't be used as PR-actions to turn attention to your conflicts with other users. „If you don't like me, I'll close the whole project“, — that's how it looks. Amikeco (talk) 16:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose RG72 (talk) 16:30, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose. Kaganer (talk) 06:04, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose Nonsense request, mass abusing by one certain party of users should, in this case as eo.wiktionary don't have any sysops, report to SRG, mass language grammar wrongs should try a solution by a drafting SWA process. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 06:40, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Not commenting on whether to support or oppose I would generally hope to keep the wiki open and so am leaning more towards oppose than support, as it does have a readerbase. However, that copyright infringement needs to get urgently solved or else that's going to stir up some serious legal trouble which is something noone ever wants to be in. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 12:38, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notable positive contributors (feel free to add names here)[edit]

Long comments[edit]

So, I wouldn't be against a massive deletion campaign of the project, as a mean to solve the massive copyright infringement, provided:

  • easily catchable non-copyvio content, if any, is stashed and planned for reimport in the aftermath
  • this will be a reset of the project, not a closure

Such a reset was already done for Wikiquote at some point.

What is your mind @Taylor 49? --Psychoslave (talk) 20:52, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reset instead of permanent non-existence is good. Parts to be rescued:
  • Noelekim's EN-EO dict
  • Kotava & Solresol contribs by Kotavusik
  • ID & SV lemmas (no piracy known on them)
  • manually selected appendix pages and help pages
Taylor 49 (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seems fine to me, in principle at least.
@Taylor 49 Could you find a list of significant contributors of the project since its launch and notify them here?
I think that the few users responsible for massive copyvio should not be given a valid vote right on this decision though, to be perfectly clear. Psychoslave (talk) 21:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also I wanted to add, I am simply currently focusing my attention on other projects and activities, which let me less time for Wikimedia contributions, but I still strive to bring the Wiktionary further. So no, I wasn't intimidated by someone, thankfully. I'm always sorry to hear about harassment and other alarming behavior in our community, and I appreciate you think of what might have been felt by others. Take care 😘 Psychoslave (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An attempt to hide evidence (#Va-1)

I have to admit that some of the accusations against me here are outright lies. Which can be directly proven by the protocols of the editions. (translate)

And the second part, such as the identified destruction of the project structure, abuse of administrative rights, violation of technical norms within the entire Wikimedia project, which the User:Taylor 49 has committed for several years and which cannot be regarded by me other than vandalism - this is true, which can also be proved on based on the protocols of the editions. (translate)

The idea to delete of Esperanto wiktionary is nothing more than an attempt to hide evidence and obstruct the investigation into User:Taylor 49 activities. (translate)

Va (🖋️) 12:07, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Even though some accusations are lies (and I don’t know why there are here), it’s a fact that this wiki is a mess. We already discussed the copyright violations before you arrived. As this time, it was already suggested to nuke the wiki. I don’t think that Taylor tries to hide evidences. This wiki doesn’t have a community for a while and just rotted. Taylor tried to save it, without completely succeeding. I recognize the work of Taylor, which spent multiple years trying to clean the project. It looks like we are a little group to be interested in the eo wikt. This project is completely rotten. I think the project should be reset, maybe send back in the incubator. Let’s develop the project on some good bases. I admit that I’m way more interested in a new project than trying on the rotten one. Maybe some contributors are interested, for example User:Robin van der Vliet. Lepticed7 (talk) 12:37, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"This wiki doesn’t have a community" - оbviously, in addition to the conflict with Pablo, i also found in the history conflicts User: Taylor 49 with at least two other persons. And the conflict with me User: Taylor 49 created in just one month - a lot of actions that repeatedly led to the loss of my job. And in some cases, there was direct interference, vandalism and misappropriation of my contribution. It is this behavior User: Taylor 49 that is the main reason why no one is able and does not want to join the project in such conditions. (translate)
About Robin - I wrote them personal invitations to take part in the discussion. They did not respond and did not participate in either discussion. Therefore, we do not know their opinion. (translate)
Everything else in the project is so small - only ~ 3500 Esperanto articles - that it doesn't really matter where the project will be, in its current state or in an incubator. If it weren't for the constant interference from User: Taylor 49, I would have processed half of these articles by now. It is much more difficult to repair the damage done by User: Taylor 49. (translate) Va (🖋️) 13:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vami: So you think we can do something about the project without resetting it? (translate) Lepticed7 (talk) 11:23, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At its current state, I estimate the amount of work that needs to be done to make the dictionary usable at about 600-700 working hours. This is a validation and normalization of all current main articles. This is with the operating mode that I got at the end of September - beginning of October. (translate)
If to allocate at least 15 hours a week to this work, then for one person it can take from 10 months to a year. Another 1-2 months should be planned for the restoration of all the destruction of the structure, at least those that I have discovered so far. If to work not alone, but in a group of 3-4 people, then it is quite possible to normalize work in 4 months. (translate)
The main condition is that no one interferes with this work. It is very difficult to do something if after spending 1 hour on work - on the next day you need to check for 2 hours what of your yesterday's work is broken or canceled. And then another 2 hours of correspondence, to find out on what basis your work was deleted. (translate)
Also, do not forget that there are external links to the dictionary, even if its current not very good condition. What will happen to the Esperanto projects wikiquote and wikibooks if the wiktionary disappears? Have you tried evaluating this problem? Only eo.wikipedia will not have any problems, because this is the oldest project and it is self-sufficient. (translate) Va (🖋️) 14:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]


This is despite the appearance of a neutral presentation, it looks like revenge - after the user has lost administrator rights. Non-constructive way. Bad way.

  1. The fate of an edition cannot be decided on the basis of a conflict between two users. There are other RFCs to analyze the personal interaction between "Taylor 49" and "Vami", and from here they must be removed.
  2. Because of "Taylor 49"'s very bizarre (and sometimes outrageous) notions of how to deal with copyright infringement and what exactly the infringement is (reviewed in the this RfC), we cannot rely on his analysis.
  3. The phrase "Intimidated by "Vami", or whatever." look like defamation and should be excluded.
  4. As wrote @Al Silonov, uniqueness of a dictionary may be defined, mainly, by "uniqueness of all articles content (wordings, definitions etc).", and "many competiting ('oficial') dictionaries contain lots of identical word definitions. So, in lexicography you may talk about copyright violation only in the case of identity of word lists and article structure. In the case of Wiktionaries, these two points are by far unparalleled."
  5. Thus, in the case of Wiktionary, this project is (should be) by definition broader and deeper than any other vocabulary alone. And the struggle with the inevitable individual coincidences of phrases and expressions cannot and should not become the focus of work and a reason for long-term conflicts (or for the destructive actions that topic starter demonstrates).

--Kaganer (talk) 06:07, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My summary: I see no major or unrecoverable problems for the continuation of the project (other than problems with the analysis and correction of possible harm caused by "Taylor 49"). So the project can and should continue to live - with this participant, if he learns to interact constructively with others, or without him. A possible "restart" will not solve any problems, they are not in the content, but in the minds.--Kaganer (talk) 06:15, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is not about coincidence in definitions that ideed can occur sometimes. This is about systematically copying many complete articles (with structure) always without attribution, and partly from copyrighted works:
  • facio vs facio
  • mus look at the "Swedish" section with examples translated into German instead of into Esperanto vs [1] But maybe it is just "bizarre and outrageous" to expect that content in the Esperanto wiktionary (except lemmas and examples in foreign languages) will be in Esperanto too.
It takes just a few seconds to insert pirated stuff into a wiki. Open other dictionary, select all CTL-A, copy CTL-C, go to eo wikt, paste CTL-V, click submit, done, a bold green size difference with 4 or 5 digits will award your "work". This is not about "revenge" or liking people, this is about massive copyright infringements. Taylor 49 (talk) 11:41, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Taylor 49: Funny, the proposed for consideration edition for mus has a date of 13:00, 14 maj. 2014(!). If you look at the history, the last 26(!) changes from the date 19:19, 7 nov. 2018 were completed by user Taylor 49 (you) or their (as singular pronoun) own bot Taylorbot (yours).
I see no problem in editing the article in three (!) years as you see fit. Did someone stop you from doing everything for 26 editions?
For eo:wikt:facio - you are referencing the revision for the date 08:56, 12 maj. 2014(!). And today the year 2021 is already ending, and the article already looks different. Do you have any specific claims to the current edition of the article? If there are, then describe them - I do not see any difficulty in further improving the article. Va (🖋️) 07:19, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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