Events on the Azerbaijani Language segment of Wikipedia have revived the issue related to this Platform
There are regular disputes regarding Azerbaijan on Wikipedia. Sometimes, the distortion of facts, and at other times, the deliberate falsification of information in articles, along with the disregard for edits and corrections, become topics of discussion on social media.
How did the discussion about Wikipedia become relevant?
The Member of the Press Council's Board, Farid Pardaşunas, caused a broad discussion with a social media post about the mass removal of information related to 3,000 martyrs during the 2020 war from the Azerbaijani language Wikipedia.
Farid Pardaşunas noted that this information was removed without the consensus of the entire community, specifically by a group of "no-war" advocates on Wikipedia, based on political arguments. However, Ayxan Ziyadzadə, who participated in and carried out the final process of the removal, wrote in social media posts that the deletion of the articles was recommended by the Wikimedia Foundation.
The issue is that Ayxan Ziyadzadə himself created many of these articles on Wikipedia. However, it appears that the articles were deleted by the decision of a group of community members.
How does Wikipedia work?
Wikipedia notes that it does not have official sources about itself. People in various languages can post and edit articles here. References should be made to trusted, accurate, and well-known sources in that language.
Wikipedia is a collection of information about encyclopedic figures, events, and processes. It allows for the editing, approval, or deletion of articles based on community discussions and decisions.
Wikipedia primarily serves as a repository of information about people, facts, and events that are frequently searched for, historically significant, and of real importance. Of course, there are not articles in various languages about every loss in every war worldwide. This would amount to millions of articles, and creating them is often impractical.
Wikipedia is a platform to continually updates itself to appear prominently in search engines and to feature articles about notable, interesting, and distinguished individuals in their communities.
From this point of view, it was possible to be satisfied with a few articles translated into many languages, with accurate information about the participants and martyrs of the Patriotic War.
It is worth noting that a separate website (www.memorial.az) has been created, where photos and biographies of each of those who died during the Patriotic War are collected in Azerbaijan. The link of this resource is placed in the most serious and trusted information resources of Azerbaijan. At the same time, Teas Press Publishing House published a 3-volume collection of biographical information about the martyrs. The point is that it is impossible to find these resources in the Azerbaijani language Wikipedia as a reference source.
There are hundreds of such cases where the members of the Azerbaijani language community of Wikipedia show Instagram and Telegram channels as a source of reference, but ignore official sources, trusted information resources, links to projects that reflect state policy or have a concept that does not contradict this policy. Wikipedia, of course, is not "Yakub Mahmudov's history textbook", but it cannot be turned into a collection of "Journey to the World of fairy tales" either.
The essence of the matter is that the main and right argument of Farid Pardashunas and the public protesting against the deletion of the articles is that the deletion of this article is not based on the consensus of the community members.
For example, admin Eldar Azimov, one of the 4 bureaucrats in AzWiki, wrote on his social network account that no article has been deleted on Wikipedia, all articles remain in the archive: "That is, it is possible to restore an article that was deleted ten years ago. As in any language section of Wikipedia, some articles on Azwiki have been deleted over time and then restored. Such deletions may occur when there is no complete consensus on articles. There was never a complete consensus on this topic either, so the articles were unfairly deleted.
I am sure that the administrators who deleted the articles will also realize this and will do their best to restore the articles."
The second issue is that the absolute majority of the people who voted for the deletion of articles related to the martyrs on social media, as well as those who defend them from the heart, are bearers of the "no-war", anarchist, and left worldview. This no longer applies to the rules of "being an encyclopedic person of Wikipedia" and gives reason to think that the articles were deleted due to the political mindset of the administrators.
It should be noted that Aykhan Ziyadzade wrote that the restoration of articles has started and more than 100 articles have been returned. However, the articles have not been completely restored. Only a few articles related to martyrs with encyclopedic information and awards, whose story was created during the war, have been restored.
Other problems in Azwiki
Wikipedia is currently one of the largest collections of information available in Azerbaijani. Those who contribute to this work voluntarily are enhancing the availability of information on online resources and are engaged in a truly significant, laborious, and benevolent effort.
The issue is that in recent years, particularly since 2020, the administration of Wikipedia in Azerbaijani has seen an increase in activity from individuals who identify as "no-war" advocates, anarchists, and those with leftist views.
A few administrators (such as Dr. Wiki54, Gadir, Samral, etc.) continuously add "encyclopedic" entries to the biographies of notable figures that consist of false information about individuals and processes they disagree with based on their worldviews.
Sometimes, they create numerous articles using social networks and unreliable sites that cannot serve as proper sources, about contemporary processes that are widely known. These articles then often become sources cited by other media without proper verification.
Unfortunately, Azwiki administrators often ignore appeals, reverse changes made, and knowingly return information that has been proven to be wrong with specific arguments and sources. This again shows that those persons are either taking orders and bribes or abusing their administrative status on Wikipedia according to their political views.
A little research is enough to reveal that the sites used as reference sources in the last 2-3 years have been banned and blocked in Azerbaijan and do not receive information from any official source. It is a pity that "no-war" Azvikists do not even use reputable news agencies, websites, or websites of official state institutions as alternative sources. For Iranians who have found a new warm home for Wikipedia in the Azerbaijani language, sometimes even non-serious channels can be a source of reference.
The choice of "encyclopedic person" is for these administrators the ones they know, know their activities, and consider "important".
Accusation of bribery of Wikipedia's administrators in the Azerbaijani language
Rovshan Ramizoglu, PhD in Philology, a teacher at Selcuk University in Turkey, one of the administrators of the Azerbaijani Wikipedia, stated in his statement to "525 newspaper" that the number of cases of taking money from someone, creating an article about him on Wikipedia, and then protecting that article is increasing every day. According to him, there has been serious innovation in the Azerbaijani language Wikipedia in the last few years: "Some editors voice their opinions on every subject they know and don't know, and are active in deleting articles related to fields they are not familiar with. As a result, many necessary articles are deleted."
Therefore, some administrators on the Azerbaijani-language Wikipedia do not comply with the non-commercial requirement of this platform. This is a clear sign of "racketeering". Profitable steps drag those people a little further into the dirt. Currently, the articles created on Wikipedia about well-known people who are active in various fields and play a role in the country's socio-political and cultural life are being amended, and untrue information about the party affiliation, political views, and various relationships of those persons is being added. As soon as the aforementioned distortions are eliminated by individuals, the same situation is repeated. This indicates that there is a crime that serves financial interests.
Chairman of the Press Council Rashad Majid, who wrote about the issue on social media, said that the problem should be resolved through consensus and discussion. He called on the parties to the discussion to refrain from insults and emotional behavior.
Osman Gunduz, the president of the Azerbaijan Internet Forum, wrote that "the current way of solving the problem in the local community of the global platform is not reasonable. I caution that in the end, when we want to solve one problem, we will face another problem that does not meet the interests of Azerbaijan. I would like to emphasize once again that the problem is not the deletion of the "3000 martyrs' article", but the crisis between the administrators of the Azviki community, the discontent between the community and the administrators, the consequences arising from the deepening of this crisis, which do not meet the interests of our country. So it seems that our friends are more attached to the result.
If we do not resolve the crisis, while the current outcome will resolve itself, other problems will be inevitable in the future. But for a global resource, it has clear rules and conflict resolution institutions.
When there is a crisis in the community, it must be resolved at this top level. It is very important to create a healthy, democratic, transparent, collegial, and self-governing environment in the Azviki community."
What is Wikipedia, and how are other countries solving the problem?
Wikipedia is a virtual encyclopedia operating in 282 languages. Founded in 2001 by Larry Sanger, Ph.D., and American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales, the platform resides at the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (Wikimedia Foundation) and is managed by a non-governmental organization. The platform is formed by volunteers.
The Azerbaijani language of Wikipedia has been operating since 2004.
Anyone with Internet access can make changes to Wikipedia articles. But there is one main issue; although anyone can edit it, its changes are reviewed by administrators. If it is not based on any source or does not reflect the truth, that person's edits will be canceled.
Wikipedia has no representative in Azerbaijan or any other country. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia created based on language, not country, therefore, for example, not Azerbaijan Wikipedia, Azerbaijani-language Wikipedia, or Georgian Wikipedia, but Georgian-language Wikipedia is more correct.
How are problems solved in Wikipedia?
In Wikipedia, there are 2 ways to solve problems: A country applies to the Wikimedia Foundation to prevent the circulation of information that does not comply with its legislation. If his application is not satisfied, he takes a step towards resolving the issue at the legal level. For example, last month Russia fined the Wikimedia Foundation 4 million rubles for not removing banned information.
The second issue is related to individuals. For example, if slanderous and insulting interventions are detected in an article containing the information of an individual, and if the identity of the author of these criminal edits and the executive who accepted his proposal is known in the discussion, that person can apply to the law enforcement agencies.
Although we seek objectivity in all matters, the matter is still based on subjective views. This, in general, reduces the credibility of Wikipedia's publication. "Wiki" means "quick" in translation. The entire operation of Wikipedia is based on this functionality. Leaving all matters to local administrators relieves the Wikimedia Foundation of additional responsibility. This is the reason why this platform has spread like a spider web. For example, any Internet user cannot edit the Internet Encyclopedia Britannica. This is an authorization granted only to those who fully meet the criteria. Therefore, the number of articles in Britannica is less than that of Wikipedia, but it is more reliable.
Wikipedia was also blocked by the Turkish government in 2017. In some articles, it was reported that points were supporting the PKK. Insulting articles about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were also published on this platform. The Wikimedia Foundation appealed to the Constitutional Court of Turkey regarding the matter. In 2020, the court assessed the closure of Wikipedia as a violation of freedom of expression, and its activities were resumed in Turkey.
In 2015, the Russian-language Wikipedia was shut down because it contained prohibited information about drugs. Similar news was published in the Russian media last year. State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin said that there are legal grounds for blocking Wikipedia. He also emphasized that all valuable information available in this resource has already been copied, adapted to encyclopedic standards, and placed on Runet.
As we mentioned, in August of this year, Russia fined the Wikimedia Foundation 4 million rubles (78 thousand manats). The company was found guilty of not deleting data banned in Russia.
Interestingly, a similar scenario happened in Iran. Issues that do not coincide with the interests of the state led to the blocking of Wikipedia in the country in 2013. In the report published in November of the same year, it was revealed that 963 of the 800,000 articles on Persian Wikipedia were removed by the Iranian government.
There are similar problems in the practice of China, France, Italy, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, England, Uzbekistan, and Great Britain, and they have always chosen one of two ways out: either they have appealed to the court, or they have generally blocked Wikipedia's activities in their countries. Some still follow that restriction, while others have returned to the previous situation.
What does the Wikipedia Foundation say?
APA addressed a media request to the Wikipedia Foundation regarding the disputes in the Azerbaijani language segment of Wikipedia.
The Foundation said that they would answer the request in the next few days.
We will continue the topic.
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