Requests for comment/Continued attacks on the Serbian Wikipedia editorial community

The following request for comments is closed. Closing as redundant since Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Cases/2026/Harassment and Sysop abuse on Serbian Wikipedia has been accepted by the U4C. //shb (t • c) 12:15, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

---

Statement of the issue

You may be familiar with the events of March 30, 2026, when six long-term editors (including several administrators) from the Serbian Wikipedia were globally banned at the same time. To this day, neither the local wiki community nor Wikimedia Serbia, with whom we are in contact, has understood the exact reason for this block. Meanwhile, local media in Serbia speculated about the motives, claiming that these were allegedly "nationalist editors" whom the WMF had "purged." At the same time, there was a sudden influx of editors and administrators from linguistically related Wikipedias (Serbo-Croatian, Croatian, and Bosnian), along with intensified editing of articles where the blame for the 1990s wars is attributed mainly to the Serbian side...

When I brought these occurrences to the community's attention, I received a threat that I would be reported on Meta: link

Subsequent events led to attempts to alter articles on medieval history, where the ethnic adjective "Serbian" was being replaced with the adjective "Bosnian" ruler. Following reactions from administrators who stopped these edits by certain individuals, new accusations were launched against the entire project and the Serbian-language editorial community: link as well as new threats of Meta reports and further editor blocks: [link]

I would like to ask the wider community for their comments, as we are now facing increased threats directed at the rest of the community by individuals who believe that the Serbian Wikipedia does not foster the "required" narrative—a narrative that targets Serbs as exclusively to blame for everything that happened in the Balkans during the 1990s. As many of you know, this issue has become a "political" question on which there is no international consensus. The Serbian Wikipedia strives to present all aspects and interpretations of these events neutrally, rather than just the viewpoint advocated by the Bosnian or Croatian Wikipedias. @Mdennis (WMF) Dear Maggie, I have tagged you as well, considering that you are familiar with the case of the recent global bans on our project. This is new issue, but unforunately coused by previous bans...--Pisanija (talk) 23:31, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Comments

• Y'all need to go to U4C. -- Sohom (talk) 19:14, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

  👍 نوفاك اتشمان (talk) 00:04, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

  Sorry, could you better explain? What do you mean by that? Pisanija (talk) 01:40, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

   Comment See here: Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee (or: "U4C"). نوفاك اتشمان (talk) 02:43, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

  👍 Milicevic01 (talk) 11:26, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

 Comment This RfC frames content disputes as an ethnic/political conspiracy involving editors from regional Wikimedia projects (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedias). Such framing is inappropriate and risks turning ordinary content disputes into nationalist accusations against entire communities. Users shouldn't be evaluated based on their linguistic, ethnic or regional affiliation.

The claim that there is an organized effort by a group of users to impose a narrative "targeting Serbs as exclusively to blame for everything that happened in the Balkans during the 1990s" is presented without evidence, diffs or analysis of this alleged POV pushing. Interestingly, despite claiming that the Serbian Wikipedia "strives to present all aspects and interpretations [...] neutrally", the language throughout this RfC characterizes one side as politically motivated outsiders while portraying the local community as collectively under attack. That framing undermines the neutrality that the statement claims to defend.

Furthermore, describing standard dispute-resolution processes as threats is misleading. Reporting local issues to Meta or requesting external support is part of Wikimedia governance. – Aca (talk) 14:03, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

By the way, the "open letter" that Pisanija wrote on the Serbian Wikipedia contains multiple statements that appear inconsistent with the UCoC. It targets another editor (Santasa99) through similar ethnic, religious and political framing. Examples include addressing the user as "descendant of fra Grgo Ilić (Ilijić) Varešanin, Bishop of Bosna Argentina", accusing editors of using distortion, falsification and participating in an "anti-Serbian revisionist" agenda, as well as portraying editorial disputes as part of an alleged campaign against Serbian historical presence west of the Drina. The "open letter" associates Wikimedia contributors with historical religious and political actors, including references to the Independent State of Croatia. Such rhetoric goes beyond polite editorial dispute and raises concerns under the UCoC provisions 2.1, 2.2 and 3.1. – Aca (talk) 14:47, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

@Aca I wonder, do you actually read everything I write, or do you just immediately attack anyone who offers a different view on events ? Where in the Open Letter regarding the aggressive denial of the Kosačas being a Serbian medieval dynasty did I connect user Santas99 with the Independent State of Croatia (NDH)? I connected the mentioned authors, Krunoslav Draganović and Dominik Mandić, with the NDH—authors who were the most prominent in denying the Serbian historical presence in Herzegovina and Bosnia, and who are nowadays heavily used as references on some other language projects. And the Open Letter regarding the denial of the Kosača dynasty is not the topic I raised here !!

You sad: "“Reporting local issues to Meta or requesting external support is part of Wikimedia governance”

—I might be right that this is a coordinated attack to seize positions, or I might not be. Maybe I am hallucinating and living in a "conspiracy theory," but you cannot tell me whether I am allowed to address this qusetion at Meta or not. Why are you trying (and not just you) to silence me and stop me from speaking publicly about this? Pisanija (talk) 16:24, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

• Comment @Pisanija: Your defensive claim that you did not explicitly connect my person and contributions to a bad-faith ideological smear is entirely refuted by the verbatim text of your "Open Letter." That page was created in the project namespace specifically to target me individually. The narrative you constructed bridges my perceived ancestry directly to twentieth-century NDH fascist actors:

1. You opened the letter by explicitly profiling my identity and lineage: Potomku fra Grge Ilića (Ilijića) Varešanina...

2. You immediately connected this perceived ancestry to an alleged campaign of historical fraud: Nisam začuđen tvojim stavom, on je deo jednog narativa koji kroz izvlačenje stvari iz konteksta, izvrtanje i proizvoljno tumačenje izvora, a neretko i falsifikatima pokušava da ospori bilo kakvo istorijsko srpsko prisustvo zapadno od Drine...

3. You then anchored this exact sentence into a paragraph detailing axis war criminals: ...preko rasističkih teza fra Krunoslava Draganovića i fra Dominik Mandića (inače kasnijih visokih dužnosnika NDH režima)...

This text leaves no room for misinterpretation. You explicitly framed a standard cross-wiki request for peer-reviewed citations as an active continuation of a multi-century religious conspiracy and fascist revisionism. Creating a dedicated project namespace page to execute an identity-based associative smear against a peer contributor is an overt breach of Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Sections 2.1, 2.2, and 3.1. – ^{s a n t a | t a l k | p i t} 21:28, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Please, I repeat, this page was not opened regarding thаt Open Letter. Comment on what is in the Statement of the issue above, if you have anything to comment on (because you probably recognized yourself in it). Otherwise, this is spamming my thread in order to bury the discussion. Thank you. Pisanija (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Since you wrote the open letter as a part of the discussion that you explicitly mentioned in your case, it is absolutely valid to bring it up here. — IмSтevan ^talk 20:52, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Concur with the nominator. The concerns raised by Pisanija are valid and touch upon the core issue of project autonomy and systemic pressure following the events of March 2026. It is completely legitimate for a long-term editor to point out a sudden, coordinated influx of users from sister projects attempting to forcefully alter long-standing local consensuses on sensitive historical topics.

Furthermore, the responses by User:Aca and User:ImStevan are a textbook example of a "red herring" tactic. Instead of addressing the actual substance of this RfC—which is the coordinated pattern of edits and threats of Meta reports used to silence local editors—they are actively trying to derail and bury the discussion by focusing on an entirely different page (the "Open Letter").

By framing every attempt to defend local consensus and historiographical neutrality as a "nationalist conspiracy," these users are in direct violation of the Assume Good Faith (AGF) guideline. Pointing out the historical background of certain controversial references (such as Draganović or Mandić) is a matter of source analysis, not a personal attack. Using the UCoC and threats of U4C escalation as a weapon to bypass local consensus and intimidate community members is unacceptable and undermines the spirit of Wikimedia governance. We need to focus on the issue at hand: the preservation of neutral, source-based editing without external intimidation. ~2026-38739-94 (talk) 09:08, 8 July 2026 (UTC)