The Signpost's commitment to inform, entertain and publish to the Wikimedia movement becomes even more critical in times of crisis. The ongoing invasion of Ukraine has already caused unimaginable pain and suffering and impacted millions. Yet in times of upheaval, from pandemics to political turmoil to natural disasters, Wikimedians come together in the service of our collective mission. People are coming to the Wikimedia projects to learn facts, and Wikimedians around the world are collaborating to share their knowledge. Contributors are helping however they can, from documenting the crisis in over 100 languages, to ensuring that coverage of Ukraine and Russia-related articles is thorough, to assisting other users who need support.

The Signpost team stands in solidarity with the communities–those directly affected in the conflicts and all others who work to protect access to free knowledge. We are also working to document and unearth as much as we can about the war and those affected, publishing reports on disinformation, spotlighting the voices of those impacted, and much more. Please share any suggestions or tips at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions or by emailing the editor-in-chief privately. Submissions can be posted at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions. We thank the community for their suggestions to this date.

The Russian Wikipedia edit that resulted in arrest and jail time

On 11 March 2022, Belarusian political police GUBOPiK arrested and detained Mark Bernstein, a Wikipedian from Minsk editing the Russian Wikipedia article about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, accusing him of the "spread of anti-Russian materials".

The Signpost has identified one edit in Russian Wikipedia adding the text вторжения России на Украину ("of the Russian invasion of Ukraine", in a reference to the United Nations emergency special session resolution adopted on March 2, 2022), which we believe is the one that resulted in Bernstein's arrest and jailing. It is not clear what was the legal basis for the arrest, as the 2022 Russian fake news law presumably does not extend into Belarus' borders.

Bernstein was arrested in Belarus on March 11, charged with not obeying a police order, and sentenced to 15 days in jail. Early reports incorrectly suggested that he might face 15 years in prison under the new Russian law.

The story is international news, with articles covering it by Omer Benjakob, a frequent analyst of Wikipedia matters, the Associated Press, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, and the Financial Times. Due to community policies, The Signpost can not discuss all of the media reports in detail.

Concerning the matter, Jimmy Wales said on his talkpage:

With regard to the arrest of a Wikipedia editor in Belarus I am doing all that I can to make sure that he is released safely but taking what I consider to be highly reliable professional advice, going on a PR offensive is not likely to be productive and indeed may very well be counter-productive. My silence on the matter should not be interpreted as inaction nor a lack of caring – a knee jerk pronouncement is not always the best way to help in a very specific situation where other approaches may more likely prove fruitful.

On the more general issue of the tragic decline of rights of free expression in various places, I am happy to be publicly critical but me speaking out to say that journalism is a human right is not going to surprise or shock anyone nor change the course of human history. Sadly, the world doesn't really listen to me in that way. The question of blackouts does naturally arise, and in general I have been and will continue to be more supportive of carefully targeted blackouts by the community in an effort to protect the right to free speech and in particular the right of Wikipedians to write a high quality neutral encyclopedia without fear of criminal or civil penalties of any kind. However, a very key phrase in what I just wrote it "carefully targeted". We have to ask ourselves in every case whether a blackout will be influential or listened to. We have had successful and unsuccessful blackouts in the past. I am very proud of how the SOPA/PIPA blackout prevented the passage of terrible legislation in the US. I am regretful that we lost the vote on the European Copyright Directive by 1 vote when we failed to blackout – I am 100% sure that a blackout would have convinced at least 1 member of European Parliament to change their vote and we would have stopped that particular nonsense. In the current circumstance in Russia, it would take a lot of convincing for me to believe that a blackout would do more good than harm. Given the war in Ukraine, and the incredible state-level pressure being placed on Russia by the international community (sanctions, etc.) I do not believe that Russia is very likely to say "oh no, Wikipedia is blacking out, we have to reverse our new draconian anti-free-speech laws." Indeed, given that they have – to my understanding – currently blocked Facebook, twitter, BBC News Russia, Deutsche Welle, etc. – and given that – again, to my understanding – Russian Wikipedia is doing a decent job of remaining high quality and neutral in the face of enormous emotion and potential legal pressure – I am surprised that Wikipedia isn't already blocked. I think it a testament to how popular and respected Wikipedia is that even in Russia, people understand that it is a force for good and that to block it is a very bad sign of a government gone wrong. As ever, we should all continue to monitor the situation and reflect thoughtfully on the best path forward. It's important that even in emotional circumstances, we try not to become angry with each other – assume good faith and let's see how we can help.

Netzpolitik.org has a piece titled Festnahme und Drohungen wegen Artikelbearbeitung ("Arrests and threats on account of article editing") that mentions:

• Suppression of all edit logs of ru:Вторжение России на Украину (2022) (Вторжение России, "Russian invasion" of Ukraine) for safety of editors
• Prevention of renaming same article
• Doxxing of editors through a Telegram channel considered linked to the Russian web brigades

Netzpolitik was careful not to name the arrested individual and redacted the names of their sources who edit on Russian Wikipedia. – B

Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines ratification vote

The voting for the ratification of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines opened on 7 March 2022 and concluded on 21 March 2022. Voting closed with 2352 votes across 128 home wiki projects. The final results from the voting process will be announced on Meta, along with the relevant statistics and a summary of comments as soon as they are available.

67 additional local votes were cast bringing the total number of enwiki registrants voting to 866 (36.82% of all voters). By comparison, enwiki registrants represent 33.95% of the electorate.

The 'home wiki' value used in these charts does not necessarily represent where a user was active during the eligibility period.

These figures should be considered preliminary.

The 238 votes in the final category were from projects casting fewer than 11 votes.

See more statistics here. – E

Wiki Unseen is seen... again

Wiki Unseen, reported on last issue in the Signpost, has been garnering discussion on Wiki. Conversations on the relevance of one of the paintings was initiated on Talk:Asquith Xavier, a Files for Discussion item was opened on whether to delete the fair-use equivalents of the portraits, and other discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation and related parties is visible at m:Talk:Communications/Wiki Unseen. The major questions include whether artistic portraits can replace photos in articles, or whether fair-use photos should be deleted once artistic portraits are available. – E

Jimbo Wales hosts AMA on Waitroom

Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, hosted an "ask me anything" on Waitroom, a software allowing for "authentic conversations" between celebrities and people. Wales says It was different and fun. I've suggested to the hosts that for the next one we switch to a 5 minute format as that's more in tune with me - I like to try to fully explain myself and tell a whole story and the 2.5 minute format was tricky for me. – E

He's been around a while

User:BeenAroundAWhile, who will be 90 years old in April, started editing Wikipedia when he was 73. He recently made his 100,000th edit and is well on his way to 101,000. The Signpost congratulates him on all his achievements. Editors should feel free to congratulate him in the Comments section below with one caveat: he does not appreciate being called "dude".

Brief notes

• Shrinkage: Active administrators shrank from the beginning of 2022 to an annual low count of 450 on 19 March – see previous Signpost coverage on declining admin cadre (January 30).
• IP masking: Rollout to come later, with session-based pseudoidentity. See IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation – Implementation Strategy and next steps (25 February 2022)
• Hackathon The 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon will be held May 20–22. More coverage is available in the Technology Report.
• Alexa, what's a sound logo for Wikimedia?: "We are hoping to co-create a sound logo with communities to improve identification of Wikimedia material when it is used on audio platforms...including notifications in Wikimedia apps and third party apps that reuse Wikimedia content, audio feedback on Wikimedia and third party UIs, and branding on audio and visual content from and licensed by Wikimedia across video, TV, film, podcasts and events" according to m:Communications/Sound Logo and Diff which notes "Wikipedia content was used to answer between 81 and 84% of common desktop knowledge queries" on the top search engines.
• Server issues: According to wikitech:Incident status and other Wikimedia Foundation documentation, multiple redundant network providers powering the United States West Coast server cluster "simultaneously experienced connectivity loss" on March 1, and all traffic was rerouted to another cluster after 20 minutes of downtime. The Signpost team is monitoring to determine if this represents some kind of attack on Wikipedia.
• New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Firefly, selected by unanimous !voting, and Sdrqaz, selected by near-unopposed !voting. Both are now listed at Wikipedia:Times that 200 Wikipedians supported an RFX, with the former noted as the highest !vote count for a unanimous RFA.
• Leadership Development Working Group applications: Applications for the Leadership Development Working Group that the Signpost reported on last issue have opened. The application period is closing on April 10, 2022.
• Let's Connect program launches: The Let's Connect working group launched their peer learning program on 25 March 2022. More details are on Diff.
• Wikimedia Foundation case dismissed in Europe: The Wikimedia Foundation's case arguing that Turkey's ban of Wikipedia violated the rights of people in Turkey was dismissed. More information is on Diff.
• Milestones: The following Wikimedia projects reached milestones this week: English Wiktionary (7,000,000 entries), Shan Wikivoyage (newly created), Gungbe Wikipedia (newly created), Hill Mari Wikipedia (100,000 page edits).
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Articles for Improvement is Sikkimese cuisine. Please help to improve this article!

On Thursday, February 24th, Serhii Petrov woke up at 5am from the sounds of explosions. His native Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine located 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the Ukrainian-Russian border, was attacked by Russian troops – along with many other regions of Ukraine. Within days, Serhii lost his job and his home. Still, he remains in Kharkiv – which is under Ukrainian control but is heavily shelled by the invading forces – to document the humanitarian consequences of Russian military aggression, including for Wikipedia.

Serhii is a longtime Wikipedia editor, known as User:Kharkivian. He has been an active Wikipedia editor for over a decade now and has created hundreds of articles, including many about his native Kharkiv region. Serhii is also a community leader in his region, having organized multiple training events and Wikipedia campaigns such as the WikiKharkivshchyna contest for libraries and other article & photo contests. Besides, he is a civic activist; Serhii was one of the leaders of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests in Kharkiv.

Before the war, Serhii’s day job was working as a content manager at a small company. However, many businesses stopped operating when the full-scale Russian invasion began – and Serhii lost his job. A few days later, he was forced to relocate from his home after his neighborhood came after heavy shelling by Russian troops in early March. His home was a few kilometers from the frontline. There was no heating and no power, and fires started breaking out in his neighborhood. Serhii firmly decided not to evacuate from Kharkiv and remain in the city, but now he has to stay at a colleague’s place in a safer neighborhood.

Now, Serhii’s main work is documenting the impacts of Russian aggression, particularly the war crimes committed by the invaders. As in other parts of Ukraine, Russia bombs civilian areas – Kharkiv authorities say over 1100 buildings were destroyed by Russian shelling, including 1000 residential homes. Serhii takes photos and videos of the destruction’s aftermath so Ukraine can one day hold the aggressors accountable in the international system of justice.

• 

  Destroyed apartment building in Kharkiv after Russian shelling

• 

  Destroyed apartment building 3 Kholodnohirska Street, Kharkiv

• 

  Destroyed house 25 Chernyshevska Street

• 

  Destroyed School 6 in Merefa after Russian rocket strike

Serhii is doing this work both as a journalist and helping Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. He is also writing daily chronicles of the attack on Kharkiv, which are being translated by volunteers into other languages (see an example in English).

After taking the photos and videos, Serhii uploaded some of them to Wikimedia Commons. He can’t upload some others for safety reasons, but still the evidence of Russian war crimes is plenty. So far, as of March 23rd, Serhii has uploaded around three dozen media files – but many more are to come. Serhii is planning to continue doing this work until the war ends, whenever this day comes. Apart from uploading photos and videos, Serhii is doing technical work on Commons like categorization. He was also a trainer at a recent webinar for volunteers held by Wikimedia Ukraine, and he is working with state agencies to freely license their photos so they can be uploaded to Wikipedia as well.

• 

  Destroyed apartment building 177 Krasnodarska Street

While documenting the impact of the war, Serhii once came under Russian shelling, but he remained intact and not deterred. Serhii calls this work his way to counter Russian aggression – one person may be most effective when defending the homeland with arms, while another may be most useful with a camera in their hands.

On his talk page on Commons, George Chernilevsky reports on the invasion of Ukraine from the city of Vinnytsia. We have copied his text as is, except for formatting and minor copy editing. He has many readers on that page. In general we've removed their comments from this page. George has welcomed this republication. He insists that his name and the name of his town be included here, as well as his spelling of the word "russia". There is always a "fog of war" and The Signpost is not in a position to verify all the facts as presented here. Any opinions stated here are George's, and we do not necessarily agree or disagree with them. We thank George for this report and commend him for his bravery. – S

02.24.2022

Hello to all, friends!

I'm fine. And my family too.

Yes, there really were explosions near Vinnytsia. The windows in my apartment rang from the shock wave. The outskirts of the city were bombarded with 3M-54 Kalibr missiles by the Russian cruiser Moskva, which I had previously photographed. Air raid sirens sounded several times in the city. There are casualties among the civilian population in the vicinity of Vinnytsia.

In general, the Ukrainian army is fighting well. Russian losses are very high:

7 aircraft

7 helicopters

24 tanks

more than other 20 armored vehicles.

Russian morale is very low, they often surrender. However, these orcs are too many for small Ukraine. Now there is a war going on not for Ukraine, but for the democratic values of the whole world.

With best regards, George

news of 02.25.2022

• At night there were air strikes on Kyiv. Civilians suffered, there were two fires. Ukrainian air defense shot down two ballistic missiles over Kyiv.
• Russian multiple rocket launchers hit residential areas of Melitopol.
• Among the civilian casualties, the death of two children was confirmed.
• The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is captured by Russian troops. The radiation level began to rise.
• The most dangerous direction is north-west of Kyiv. Russian troops are advancing from the territory of Belarus.
• Fights are going on in the vicinity of Gostomel, Vorzel and Bucha. Ukrainian mechanized units set up a powerful barrier there.
• with the help of the Javelins, they destroyed a column of military equipment. In addition, several helicopters were shot down.
• Kyiv is preparing for defense. Citizens are enrolled in the territorial defense of Kyiv. Today, 18,000 automatic rifles have been distributed to the population. Russian sabotage groups were seen in the city.
• In the Chernihiv region, the offensive of the Russians was stopped. But the enemy is building up reserves there, as in the Sumy region. The goal is a new offensive.
• In Kharkov, another attack was beaten off in the morning. There was a missile attack on residential areas of Kharkov. Used multiple launch rocket systems "Hurricane" and "Smerch".
• In Melitopol, part of the city was captured by the Russians, the other half is held by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
• Near Kherson, the Russian Federation is trying to cross the Dnieper River, Ukraine is holding defenses on the right bank.
• Several new groups of russian military were taken prisoner. Those taken prisoner repeat the same version: they were going to the exercises, the commanders did not say that we were heading to Ukraine.

• A Ukrainian pilot in a MiG-29 shot down 6 russian planes over Kyiv. He has already received the nickname "The Ghost of Kyiv"
  • 2 Su-35
  • 1 Su-27. The pilot of the Su-27 was taken prisoner.
  • 1 MiG-29
  • 2 Su-25

News of Vinnytsia:

• Was successfully repulsed several air attacks
• Shot down a russian cruise missile
• Detained several saboteurs
• There was a terrorist attack at the "Maslozhir" plant

-G

Updated:
Today, russian army vehicles was shot from ambushes and several caravans were burned. Russia's losses are very high: about 80 tanks, 516 infanty fighting vehicles, a large number of guns and rocket artillery. Russia has run out of operational reserve. The Ukrainian army launched a counteroffensive and begins to liberates its territory.
The Ukrainian army successfully attacked a military airfield in the Rostov region in Russia with the ballistic missile Tochka.
Russian air attacks remain strong and regular. In Kyiv, civilian infrastructure was damaged. Russian air attacks on Vinnytsia began at 5 am and continue to this time now. -G

news of 02.26.2022

• The main goal of Russia's aggression has become known: it is the physical destruction of the President of Ukraine and the military-political leadership. After that, it was planned to install a new puppet regime under Putin.

• At night and in the morning there were strong battles for Kyiv. Fights with Russian vehicles took place even near two metro stations. Citizens in the militia were given NLAW anti-tank missiles. Also two russian tanks were burned by Molotov cocktails. For now, the attacks have been repulsed, all the forces that have broken through have been destroyed.

• One heroic and funny moment happened in Kyiv. The Russian armored infanty fighting vehicle lost its orientation and got lost. The russian soldiers decided to ask for directions and opened the hatch. Street hooligans beat up russian warriors and took them prisoner, took away the IFV, and then gave the trophies to the Ukrainian army.

• At night, they shot down a Russian Il-76 with a landing party on board, two Su-25s and a combat helicopter.

• Fighter "The Ghost of Kyiv" won his ten victory.

• Various civilian buildings in Ukraine have been hit by Russian missiles. One cruise missile hit a high-rise residential building in Kyiv. There are cases in the pediatric oncology hospital and in the orphanage.

• Again, many russian prisoners. These are conscripts from various parts of Russia and the National Guard - SOBR, and russian police - OMON.

• On the coast near Odessa, they tried to land a Marine Corps. One boat was burned, two dozen infantrymen were killed, the rest retreated.

• Russian missile cruiser Moskva has again committed a shameful war crime. He shot from artillery the border outpost of Ukraine on the small island of Serpents. It's a tiny rock in the sea, there were 13 people in total, and there was nowhere to hide. More here: Attack on Snake Island.

• The Russian fleet fired on merchant ships of Japan and Moldova

• Also Russian fleet shot down its own plane with friendly fire.

• There have been air raids on Vinnytsia every hour until now. One Russian Su-25 was shot down near Vinnytsia. -G

Updated:
Very good article here 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, so from now on I will only occasionally post personal news. I'm fine -G

news of 03.02.2022

I'm fine, just tired. Each evenings і patrol my city. This afternoon there was again an air raid alert several times. A russian sabotage group was captured near Vinnytsia. The support of citizens and the military to each other has greatly increased. All Ukrainians rallied as one family.

Today, the Ukrainian army launched a counterattack in many areas, and settlements are being liberated. The losses of the russian army are colossal. Some of the abandoned equipment in good condition becomes the trove of the Ukrainian army, include tanks and AFVs.

The pilot The Ghost of Kyiv was shot down, but ejected and was able to return to his airfield. He got a new jetfighter and after that shot down another enemy.

Meduza.io published photos of war, see below:

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/02/27/tretiy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/01/shestoy-den-voyny-fotografii

-G

news of 03.04.2022

Russian general Andrey Sukhovetsky was killed in Ukraine. The USSR and russia did not lose their generals in battles after 1943.

The Ukrainian nuclear power plant in the city of Energodar was fired upon by Russian tanks. This is a threat of ecological catastrophe for the whole of Europe.

Among Ukrainian trophies there are serviceable Russian tanks and other armored vehicles. Some number of captured russian tanks, trucks and armored vehicles is being marked as Ukrainan now, and used by the Ukrainian army. Trophies also include several serviceable Pantsir missile systems, ammunition trucks, trucks for transporting prisoners, and one TOS-1.

Russian propaganda is silent about the huge losses of the Russian army.

Ukraine plans to send 20 railcars filled with the corpses of Russian soldiers to Russia.

Despite all the horrors of the war and the sanctions, Putin's rating within the Russian population has increased by about 11%. Russians believe that Russia is a great country now that everyone will now be afraid of.
More photos from Meduza:

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/02/sedmoy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/03/vosmoy-den-voyny-fotografii
  

Morning in Vinnytsia was again with air raid sirens. I am hosting another group of refugees from the war. They need to be given food and shelter in my home. Tomorrow they will go further to the west of Ukraine. My beautiful city now looks gloomy. Checkpoints and patrols in the streets, Czech hedgehogs, and cross-sealed glass on the windows to protect against the shock wave.
I'll be patrolling again tonight. I want to see something kind and peaceful from my old photo shoots of Ukraine and post here on Commons.
I'm still fine -G

news of 03.06.2022

In Ukraine, the number of victims among the civilian population is increasing. Russian troops are shelling civilians.
There was just now russian missile attack on Vinnytsia. 8 large caliber missiles.
I'm still OK -G
Updated: today's attack on the city of Vinnytsia was carried out from the Black Sea of the russian navy with 8 missiles 3M-54 Kalibr. -G

news of 03.08.2022

Losses of the Russian army on 03.08.2022:

• Aircraft 48
• Helicopters 80
• UAV operational-tactical reconnaissance 7
• Ships and boats of the Navy 3
• AFVs 1036
• Tanks 303
• Trucks 474
• Railway tanks with fuel 60
• Guns 120
• Multiple launch rocket systems 56
• Over 12,000 military killed
• Second Russian general killed Vitaly Gerasimov

Russian troops in Ukraine destroyed 202 schools, 34 hospitals and more than 1,500 residential buildings by shelling and bombing of peaceful targets.
Air raid sirens sound again in Vinnytsia -G

news of 03.09.2022

The Russian military completely bombed the building of a maternity hospital in the occupied city of Mariupol. Among the victims - both staff and women in labor, a total of 17 people.
More photos of the war from Meduza.io, it's all happening now in Europe:

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/09/mariupol-uzhe-nedelyu-nahoditsya-v-osade-v-gorode-net-vody-tepla-i-elektrichestva-lyudi-zhivut-v-podvalah-i-bomboubezhischah-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/05/devyatyy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/06/desyatyy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/06/odinnadtsatyy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/07/dvenadtsatyy-den-voyny-fotografii

Russian invaders are trying to create an ecological catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The power supply of the cooling system for the storage of nuclear waste is damaged.
Russia has again prepared mobile crematoria for its soldiers. Such crematoria have already been used before in the Donbas war from 2014 and in the war in Syria. Thus, the Russian leadership is trying to hide information about the number of their losses. Morgues and hospitals in Crimea and Belarus are already overcrowded. Russia refused to accept wagons with the corpses of its soldiers from Ukraine. Turning Russian soldiers into ashes solves two problems: information about the number of losses disappears and the need to pay monetary compensation to the family of the deceased disappears. The soldier did not die in the action, but became missing for no known reason, perhaps even a deserter. There are separate reports from hospitals in Belarus that severely maimed but still alive disabled people also disappear from hospital beds, they are taken somewhere.
Additional information about crematoria in the article
https://nypost.com/2022/02/24/russia-has-mobile-crematoriums-that-evaporate-the-dead-report/
The Russian army has lost more than a thousand armored personnel carriers, so new columns with soldiers are traveling in the bodies of civilian trucks and dump trucks without awnings. Among the Russians who surrendered, there are cadets of the school of military cooks, teachers and civilians who were seized on the streets of cities and forcibly sent to fight. The morale of the Russian army is very low. New nicknames of this period:

• Russia - Mordor
• Russian soldiers - orcs.
• Molotov cocktail - Bandera smoothie. In memory of Stepan Bandera.

There were also several air attacks on Vinnytsia today. Two russian missiles were destroyed before they reached the city. -G

news of 03.12.2022

Total losses of the Russian army on 03.12.2022:

• Aircraft 58
• Helicopters 83
• UAV operational-tactical reconnaissance 7
• Ships and boats of the Navy 3
• AFVs 1205
• Tanks 362
• Trucks 474
• Railway tanks with fuel 60
• Guns 135
• Multiple launch rocket systems 62
• Over 12,000 military killed
• Third Russian general killed Andrei Kolesnikov

A noteworthy moment: russian Wikipedians began to nominate articles about killed russian generals for deletion. They explain it with various pretexts.
In recent days, the Russian army has not been successful, therefore it resorts to terror of the civilian population. A bomb with a capacity of 1000 kg of TNT was dropped on Mariupol. In the city of Dnipro, rocket attacks hit a residential building, a kindergarten, and a shoe factory.
More photos of the war from Meduza.io:

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/10/pyatnadtsatyy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/11/shestnadtsatyy-den-voyny-fotografii

Air raid sirens sound again in Vinnytsia. Thanks everyone for the moral support -G

news of 03.13.2022

Thanks everyone!
The main problem of the russians is that you can only move forward along the highways. Ukrainian fertile land is used everywhere for agriculture. These are open fields. Therefore, if a tank drove off the highway, it immediately fell right up to the turret into soft, wet black soil and got stuck. The russian army entered Ukraine in military columns 50-64 km long in all directions. It was an excellent target for aviation, artillery and precision weapons.
Unfortunately, the retaliatory actions of the russian military are terror and shelling of civilians. About 2,200 civilians killed in Mariupol alone.
Panic is now in Crimea. The russians who arrived after the occupation are now selling their homes for next to nothing, throwing away their furniture and property, and leaving for the depths of Russia. Every day, in Crimea another 5,000 apartments are put up for sale additionally. Tatars in Crimea took to mass demonstrations in support of the return of Crimea to Ukraine.
Thanks to everyone who helps Ukraine and helps Ukrainian refugees in your countries. Unfortunately, i see many reports of misbehavior by Ukrainian refugees in Moldova, in Poland and even in Portugal. These refugees arrange banquets, scandals, and brawls in European countries. Do not think that all Ukrainians are like that. This behavior occurs mainly in people with thick wallets and a bad conscience. It was these scoundrels who went to you in the first batch of refugees.
Help those who are grateful to you.
In Vinnytsia, the day passed, as usual, with air raid sirens. However, there are some improvements. More stores have opened now. Barbershops and salons have reopened. Schools will be open online from Monday. -G

Are you ok?

(On 16 March 2022 other Wikimedians inquire about George's absence on the page.)

Hello friends. I'm fine, just tired. I'll write more just now... -G

news of 03.16.2022

Today at 04:00 Vinnytsia heard explosions of rocket attacks. Two rockets damaged the Vinnytsia TV tower. In addition, a school and a kindergarten were damaged.
A significant part of my time today is spent communicating with friends, acquaintances and relatives from Russia. It was really terrible! They have all seen Russian propaganda on TV and called with accusations that Ukrainians are Nazis who want to kill Russian children. Putin's propaganda is a real means of turning people into obedient zombies. I burned out from the inside from such communication.
And at the same time, Ukrainian children actually die from Russian bombs or become disabled.
Despite the hostilities, sowing work begins in the agricultural fields of southern Ukraine.

Total losses of the Russian army 02.24.2022 - 03.16.2022:

• Aircrafts 84
• Helicopters 108
• UAV operational-tactical reconnaissance 11
• Ships and boats of the Navy 3
• AFVs 1375
• Tanks 430
• Trucks 819
• Railway tanks with fuel 60
• Guns 190
• Multiple launch rocket systems 70
• Air defense vehicles 43
• Special engineering vehicles (pontoons etc.)10
• Over 13,800 military killed
• Russian generals killed in total 8

Captured serviceable russian equipment is now used in the service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:

• Tanks 45
• Armored personnel carriers 27
• Self-propelled artillery mounts 4
• Air defense vehicles 6
• Howitzers 7
• Trucks 70

Since the equipment of russia and Ukraine has the same calibers and a common history from the USSR, Ukraine has no problems with spare parts, repairs and ammunition for trophies.
In recent days, several Russian pilots have been taken prisoner and have given important testimony about the war crimes of the russian military leadership. Now russian parachutes is broken and not opened after ejection of russian pilots.
The russian army continues to massively dispose of the corpses of its soldiers in order to keep silent about their losses. They are burned or buried in mass graves in the area of ​​hostilities.-G

news of 03.18.2022

Hi all. I'м OK.
News from Russia today is a severe moral degradation of the population. People protest minimally against the war, but there are long lines with fights to buy scarce goods. Private polls taken in Russia have reported that the majority of russians still support the war and think the government's actions are the right thing to do. For example, 81% support aggression against Ukraine, 75% believe that Poland should be the next country for russian attack. Also the Baltic countries and Moldova over 60% are also named as the next goals. The survey percentage can be considered approximate only, but they show the general tendencies of russian morality now. Russia also said that Bosnia could repeat the Ukrainian scenario.
The russian army still has no success in military advance and therefore strikes at civilian targets. Yesterday's air strike on the theater of Mariupol is also a barbaric act. In the basement of the theater there was a bomb shelter for the civilian population. In Ukraine, there are no longer cities and towns where the population can be safe.
The morning of Vinnytsia began with air raid sirens. One of the downed russian rockets fell in a small village near Vinnytsia. My friends live two hundreds of meters from the fall of this rocket. The rocket did not explode, so there will be an evacuation of the population, and only then mine clearance. -G

(in response to a reader's question)

Unfortunately, not everything is so optimistic, my friend. I talked with some different people from russia. Among those who hate Ukraine and support russian aggression, there are people of creative professions and people with university education. The propaganda machine is too strong in russia, and there are people who are simply comfortable living with a point of view that blames Ukraine and talks about justifying this war. -G

I will add here a quote from one russian who has a good education and is engaged in creative work:

"When the Internet first appeared, I rejoiced like crazy. I thought: well, now the boundaries of the world will move apart, it will become easier than ever to find out the necessary information and the truth about everything. And now the Internet is no longer a cake, which means it's time to end anarchy and freedom in it. It remains to be hoped that the good old censorship and the criminal code will come to the Internet."

news of 03.19.2022

Little remark: my knowledge of English is not perfect, but i use of small letters is intentional. I write russia from a small letter, because i despise the aggressor.
Today's night and morning in Vinnytsia passed quietly. This is the first time since the beginning of the war. My little granddaughter (she is now 7 years old)has already learned all the air raid alarms. The first long signal of the siren - an enemy is detected in the air. The second long signal of the siren means that our air defense could not repel the attack, and there will be a blow. A short siren signal means the end of the air attack.
In the mornings, my granddaughter studies in the first grade of the school online, but the lessons are sometimes interrupted due to an air attack. My granddaughter is also taking her friend Thomas, her pet cat, to the bomb shelter. Since the beginning of the war, russia has launched about 1,070 large-caliber missiles into Ukraine. Previously, Ukrainian air defense could only repel about 10% of air attacks. However, tonight, something began to change. Many air targets were shot down. -G

Near Nikolaev, Ukrainian troops captured serviceable russian self-propelled gun 2S19 Msta.

Another russian general is killed. This was Mordvichev Andrei Nikolaevich - Lieutenant General of the Armed Forces of the russian federation Chief of Staff of the 8th Guards General Army of the Southern Military District.

More photos from Meduza.io

Сoncerts and rallies in support of Russia's aggressive policy:

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/18/v-rossiyskih-gorodah-proshli-mitingi-i-kontserty-posvyaschennye-godovschine-prisoedineniya-kryma-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/19/po-prikolu-poshli-ne-vseriez

Photos of war

• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/17/dvadtsat-vtoroy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/16/dvadtsat-pervyy-den-voyny-fotografii
• https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/14/devyatnadtsatyy-den-voyny-fotografii

-G

(in response to questions) I'm OK.

Yes, the death of Andrei Nikolaevich Paliy has been confirmed. This officer of the navy wore the shoulder straps of a colonel (in the russian navy - a captain of the first rank), but he held the second most important position in the Black Sea navy. This position corresponds to the level of admiral.

An article about this murdered navy leader was immediately nominated for deletion in the ru-Wiki. This is becoming a russian tradition for all russian commanders killed in Ukraine in 2022. It is likely that a significant part of the ru-Wiki community is under the control of russian special services. This is another way to keep silent about the losses of the russian army in the war, and it is likely that even here russian censorship is active. -G

news of 03.21.2022

Now in Vinnytsia it is relatively calm, although there were several air raid sirens today. Few cruise missiles landed outside the city without detonation at latest days. The official authorities of the city and the region issued warnings about the danger of such items. The search for bombs and missile warheads continues. Yesterday the work of the television tower was restored in the city.
Over the past day, the brigades of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (this is the rescue service in Ukraine, similar to 911) 1208 times went to eliminate the consequences of shelling and bombing. This is for the whole country. Most of the strikes were on civilian infrastructure.
At night, Kyiv was heavily shelled with rockets. The footage hurts to look at. Rockets hit residential areas and a shopping center.
As a result of the shelling of a chemical plant in the city of Sumy, ammonia leaked from tanks.
There are no advances along the front line, the aggressor has been stopped everywhere and is trying to hold on to the existing lines.
Russia is hardly making up for its personnel losses. Therefore, the orchestra of the russian railway troops and cadets of military schools were sent to the front for replenishment.
Total losses of the Russian army 02.24.2022 - 03.21.2022:

• Aircrafts 97
• Helicopters 121
• UAV operational-tactical reconnaissance 24
• Ships and boats of the Navy 3
• AFVs 1535
• Tanks 498
• Trucks 969
• Railway tanks with fuel 60
• Guns 240
• Multiple launch rocket systems 80
• Air defense vehicles 45
• Special engineering vehicles (pontoons etc.)12
• Over 15,000 military killed

-G

news of 03.22.2022

Yesterday and today there were several air raid sirens in Vinnytsia.
A woman journalist from Germany was found in Vinnytsia, who was engaged in espionage activities in favor of russia. She was expelled from Ukraine. She was accompanied by colleagues who also left our country.
A group of spies was also detained near Vinnytsia, who worked under the legend that they were refugees from Kharkov, but in fact collected and transmitted data of a military nature.
In Kyiv, a Tik-Tok blogger was detained, who posted a video about the movements of Ukrainian equipment. The equipment left, and the russians launched a powerful missile attack on the city blocks that were shown in the video. The blogger has been arrested and is under investigation.
The current account of neutralized Russian espionage and sabotage groups in Ukraine is 162 since the beginning of the war.
The 100th Russian plane was shot down.
In Vinnytsia region and in some other quiet areas, the sale of beer was allowed from today. Strong alcoholic beverages continue to be under Prohibition due to martial law.
-G

news of 03.24.2022

Important news today: find Zelensky's online message at the NATO summit in your media. It's short and to the point. This is what not only our President, but every citizen of Ukraine would like to tell the whole world.
-G

news of 03.25.2022

(in response to a reader who asked about a report that the Air Force Command of Ukrainian Armed Forces in Vinnytsia, has been bombed)'

Yes, there really was a strong blow to the city center with large-caliber rockets. The whole city heard the sounds of these explosions.
-G
Little news from the city of Vinnytsia
The city changed the rules of public transport. Now municipal trams and trolleybuses are not required to stop during an air raid. However, passengers can ask to stop and get off at their own request if there is a bomb shelter nearby.
One of the bomb shelters hosts free puppet theater performances for children who have been evacuated to Vinnytsia from more dangerous regions.
One of the drinking water suppliers in the city refused to sell for their services and provides water free of charge to the population.
The windows of hospitals and maternity hospitals are barricaded from the outside with sandbags.
The city has a large number of volunteer organizations that are very active in helping the army and refugees. A large number of requests appear on social networks, to which the entire population responds very quickly. All for victory, and we are all like one family. It is an amazing feeling, as if you live in Sparta.
The experiment with weak alcoholic drinks was successful, the population remains disciplined, so cafes and restaurants were also opened in Vinnytsia, despite the bombing. The same decision was made in the city of Odessa, which was also under fire. Life goes on.
My cousin is a military doctor, he now works non-stop in a hospital, providing assistance to wounded Ukrainian servicemen. Sometimes we can talk on the phone with him. For rest, he has only sleep time. He told me that our wounded heroes show resilience and optimism despite their severe injuries.
My friend and his family left Irpin, where he used to live and is now in Vinnytsia. His house still survived, but, as he himself now assesses the situation, Irpin will not be suitable for life for a long time to come. A lot of fuel from broken military equipment was spilled into the ground. There are a large number of explosive objects and corpses of Russian soldiers on the streets. There are also a lot of traces of fires. There is a cadaverous smell and the smell of burning in the Air.
Another family we knew was able to leave Velyka Dymerka when there was a humanitarian evacuation corridor. There they had their own house and a small farm. They saw how the invaders shot their neighbor, an ordinary civilian woman. They released all the live pigs from the farm into the street and thanked God that they were alive and were able to leave. Now these people live with relatives.
What are people talking about on the streets? That Western politicians are too weak to stop russian aggression. Ukraine is fighting for the whole world, the Third World War has already begun, and they are lamenting their financial losses (sanctions damage both sides) and assure russia of their prudence and non-intervention. We are grateful to the whole world for any help, but this help is too little for victory. Ukraine also suffers losses both in the troops and in the civilian population. Already more than 560 russian tanks have been destroyed, but the total number of tanks in the russian army before the war was 12,420. Now the second stage of general mobilization in Ukraine has begun, as additional reserves for the army were needed.
-G

I am lucky to live in the west of Ukraine, where there is little actual damage. We're having air alerts several times a day, and I'm really hoping that our air defense forces continue to protect Ukraine no less than they are doing now. My extended family is scattered in the villages across the country and everyone is currently fine. News from the front lines is painful to watch.

When the wide invasion began many people volunteered to sew blankets and pillows, cook for the territorial defense people, weave camouflage nets, manage logistics. I found out that I am not able to actively volunteer for the defense sector, so I resorted to editing Wikipedia: the thing I know, the thing I'm comfortable doing.

Wikipedia remains, you know, a place for people to learn things. At the beginning of February I was interested in creating a list of sandwiches and Majblomma and was hoping that these pages will have other interested readers, too. In March I had to create articles on the FAB-500 bomb and survivors guilt because I know: these are among our interests now.

At a first glance, Ukrainian Wikipedia lives its usual life. There are new articles being created on species of Lepidoptera, vandalism being reverted in articles about singers, thematic week collaborations being organised – just with fewer overall contributors than usual and substantial number of edits made in articles about the Russian invasion. There are editors who curate lists of fallen soldiers and articles about battles as they unfold. I leave it to them.

To me personally Wikipedia is a safe haven. Familiarity means stability. I am adding categories to uncategorised templates. Yes, this is one of the most boring manual exercises I can think of. But it is safe in this corner of the internet. No edit conflicts, no rush, no horrors; hundred after hundred templates just go through my hands and become a tiny bit better.

I am also very fond of translating important pages on Meta-wiki into Ukrainian, so that the community has more chances to learn about what's coming: from the Tech News to the UCoC news, there are always many things happening in the movement, all the time. Translating meta pages drains me dry, and the backlog is always there, but when I see the UCoC Enforcement guidelines at 100% translatedness, the joy is very real. Ukwiki will not shine in this vote on guidelines for a reason, but I've always been proud of our reputation as an active voting community and we'll be back as such.

My friend and I spoke recently about the world's perception of Ukraine's history and she said that this is the time for Ukrainians to say: "Remember you were hesitating about the severity of Soviet repressions? About the reliability of our sources on Holodomor? About the Russia's policies towards Ukraine through history? Remember what we told you; it was all true. Ukraine is fighting hard because it is what we've done for hundreds of years: we fight Russia." Ukraine is a sovereign state and has every right to remain this way and to nurture its own culture within its own borders. This is why I was so glad to see users taking part in Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month, and then also wikis holding their own article-writing collaborations about Ukraine. It is much appreciated. I wouldn't want the world to get to know my country for the reason of being shelled, and I do know that dozens of countries and hundreds of cultures remain underrepresented in information space. It shouldn't take a disaster for free knowledge to spread; Wikimedians, of all people, know that well.

Wikimedia is the turtle that the elephants of my personal mental state stand on; it is probably true for some other editors as well. I talk to other Wikipedians online when they show up: some people fled Kharkiv and Kyiv for Khmelnytskyi or Ternopil, some people stayed. There are Wikipedia editors who defend Ukraine with arms, and there are those who left the country to protect their children. I am grateful to dozens of Wikimedians who wrote me personally to show their support. I am lucky to be safe and to have time and resources to just edit. The truth and the light will win.

When Russian president Vladimir Putin gave the order for Russian troops to invade Ukraine, he set off a search for information on his friends and supporters known as the Russian oligarchs. Some of the sought-after information is on the location of their yachts, luxury jet planes, and financial assets, in order for Western governments to seize these assets and pressure Putin to stop the war.

There are several dozen Russians commonly called oligarchs. They include some of the richest people in the world who acquired their riches with the support of Putin's regime and in turn have supported Putin and his policies. They tend to be secretive, carefully protecting their privacy. The New Yorker in its article "How Putin's Oligarchs Bought London" cites Oliver Bullough's view that the oligarchs came to London for, among other reasons, luxury homes, experienced lawyers and tax accountants, PR firms, and "'reputation managers' for inconvenient backstories".^[1]

There are many articles on Wikipedia about the oligarchs. We selected the articles on some of the richest and best known to see if they – or more likely their employees – have edited Wikipedia to remove embarrassing information, and whether known sockpuppets have edited the articles about them.

The Signpost's investigation has found that well known oligarch Alisher Usmanov hired the PR firm RLM Finsbury, whose employees then edited the Wikipedia article about Usmanov.^[2][3] Also, employees of the infamous PR firm Bell Pottinger, who were later blocked as sockpuppets, edited the articles of lesser known oligarchs Alexander Nesis^[4] and Arkadiy Abramovich.^[5]

Bell Pottinger was exposed to the world as an unethical Wikipedia whitewasher in 2011 following an undercover investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Bell Pottinger had told the reporters, who posed as Uzbeki officials known for human rights violations, that they could remove material from Wikipedia using "dark arts".^[6] Bell Pottinger continued to represent controversial clients. In 2017 they were forced to close after it was discovered that they were working for the Gupta family using a social media campaign that promoted racial hatred in South Africa.

RLM Finsbury was exposed as a whitewasher in 2012 when they were caught editing Wikipedia for Usmanov. They admitted their mistake and promised never to repeat it. Finsbury also represented another Russian oligarch, Andrei Skoch, and attempted to have information about his yacht removed from the social media site SuperYacht Fan.

But not all the articles on oligarchs that we examined showed such direct evidence of them rewriting the articles about themselves. The article on Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea F.C. and the father of Arkadiy, more or less appeared to neutrally present the facts of his life, even though it had been edited by about 50 now-blocked sockpuppets (deceptive users of multiple accounts). The articles on four other oligarchs were of varying quality with varying levels of evidence of sockpuppeting, but together they show a pattern of sockpuppet edits, often performed by the same sockpuppets or sockfarms (groups of sockpuppets who appear to be cooperating, and who are often blocked as a group) on the articles of multiple oligarchs.

Sockpuppets do not usually whitewash the same article with each edit. Some may simply update the oligarch's net worth frequently or copy edit the article. Others may add positive information or push negative information toward the bottom of the article. Some may even appear to be working against the oligarch's interest.

We remind our readers that any investigation of onWiki editing cannot prove who edited the articles based purely on editing records and other information made available on Wikipedia. For example an editor may mimic a sockpuppet or undeclared paid editor in an effort to embarrass the subject of an article, a practice known as "joe jobbing". We can, however, gather the evidence that is available either on-Wiki or off-Wiki.

The results of oligarch editing

An experienced Wikipedia editor, who asked to remain anonymous, described how the oligarch articles looked before the war.

Many of these articles had all the hallmarks of conflict-of-interest editing: The subject is highly controversial, but the controversies are obfuscated. They are lost in the body of the article among extensive details, trivia and poorly sourced puffery. This may include detailed coverage of every single philanthropic endeavor the subject has ever been involved in. The same pattern can be seen in articles related to political and economic elites in kleptocracies and autocracies in general.

Exceptions to this rule include the articles on Roman Abramovich and Alexander Nesis. "I was surprised by the extent that the article covered how Abramovich earned his wealth", said the anonymous editor, pointing out a recent BBC News article with new evidence, "yet the Wikipedia article had included similar material long before". The Nesis article seems "relatively small for an article heavily edited by COI accounts. COI accounts usually fill these articles with mundane trivia and puffery while also removing negative content."

Who's who and what happened to the articles?

The Wikipedia articles The Signpost investigated include the following:

Alisher Usmanov is considered to be among the richest and most powerful of the oligarchs and one of the closest to Putin.^[7][8][9] Although he was born in Uzbekistan, he is a resident of Russia and owns or controls Metalloinvest, MegaFon, and the newspaper Kommersant.

From August 2007 through April 2011 a firm controlled by Usmanov was the largest shareholder of Arsenal F.C. as he tried and failed to gain full control of the club. Usmanov's yacht, the Dilbar, valued at about $594 million, was seized by German authorities in early March. ^[10]

Sixteen now-banned sockpuppets – some from well known sockfarms – have edited the article. These include CarryOn95 and AliAlvi55 – both from the Antony1821 sockfarm, as well as Alfaweiss and Creative2016 – both from the Mikenew1953 sockfarm. The editing on the talk page was extensive and contentious. It included edits favoring Usmanov by three now-blocked editors Zezen, Demiurge1000 (who is also globally locked), and FoCuSandLeArN (who was blocked for undeclared paid editing).

The strongest evidence that Usmanov's employees edited the Wikipedia article about him is provided by The Times,^[2] with additional reporting by The Daily Telegraph^[3] and The Guardian.^[11] of a 2012 story that the RLM Finsbury PR firm which was employed by Usmanov to help in the London IPO of the firm MegaFon, edited the Wikipedia article to remove Usmanov's criminal history. He was convicted for corruption, fraud and the theft of state property and served six years in prison before the conviction was expunged in 1989. Finsbury admitted making the edits, but claimed that Usmanov was unaware of the edits and did not ask for them.

Roman Abramovich is perhaps the best-known Russian oligarch. He made his first billions of dollars in the 1990s during the controversial loans-for-shares privatization in oil, and then in the aluminum industry. When Russian President Boris Yeltsin left office, Abramovich became a close advisor to the new president, Putin. In 2003 he bought London's Chelsea F.C. and turned it into a top European club. The New Yorker reports unconfirmed stories that Putin personally ordered Abramovich to buy the soccer club.^[1]

Perhaps because of his long exposure in the British press as the owner of Chelsea F.C., the controversies surrounding Abramovich have been well covered in the Wikipedia article about him. Sockpuppets who have actively edited the article, such as Avaya1, have tended to copy edit, remove edits biased against Abramovich, or document his gifts to charities, e.g. here or in one case paint him as a victim of an unscrupulous Russian scammer [1].

Over 50 now-blocked sockpuppets edited this article. These include Earflaps, who edited articles on other oligarchs and on financial articles as part of the MusicLover650 sockfarm; CoffeeStation95, part of the Antony1821 sockfarm; DeltaGr, part of the Mikenew1953 sockfarm; and Russavia, a former Wikimedia Commons administrator who engaged in broad disruption of the English Wikipedia, and promoted the Russian airline industry.

Arkadiy Abramovich is the eldest son of Roman Abramovich. He became established in business in about 2010 when he was age 17. His investments have been in the oil, gas, and financial industries.

The article was edited by the sockpuppet Charlesstewart99, who was blocked for editing for the disgraced and now-defunct PR firm Bell Pottinger. The firm admitted to using "black arts" on Wikipedia while editing for the government of Uzbekistan but not for either Abramovich.

Oleg Deripaska also made his first billions during the Yeltsin era privatizations, mostly in aluminum. He has owned Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer and the company Basic Element. After Yeltsin left office, he became close to Putin.

Thirty now-blocked sockpuppets edited the article about him, including some of the same socks who edited the article on Roman Abramovich, including Earflaps and CoffeeStation95. Selimabner6, part of the BurritoSlayer sock farm, completely rewrote many sections of the article in nine consecutive edits [2], whitewashing much of the article, for example changing "oligarch" to "business magnate".

Mikhail Fridman may be the most sympathetic oligarch. According to a March 17 interview in Bloomberg Business Week "Broke Oligarch Says Sanctioned Billionaires Have No Sway Over Putin" he was worth about $15 billion before the start of the war and may be worth $10 billion now, but because of the sanctions placed on him, he doesn’t have access to most of his cash now. He was born and raised in Lviv, Ukraine and has spoken out against the war. He is a longtime resident of London and is a citizen of both Russia and Israel. He became an entrepreneur in 1988 before the break-up of the Soviet Union. He made much of his money in banking with Alfa-Bank and later in oil with TNK-BP.

In 2018 SmartSE, a trusted editor and opponent of undeclared paid editing, wrote on the talk page of the Mikhail Fridman article "This article was written entirely by Earflaps who was an undisclosed paid editor." SmartSE was only slightly exaggerating: from September – November 2016, Earflaps made 71 edits to the Wikipedia article, almost completely rewriting it. Five other sockpuppets who edited the article, including Glaewnis (who was blocked for undeclared paid editing), Sovietsky pioneer and Poor billionaire – members of the Pionier sockfarm, as well as members of the BurritoSlayer and Antony1821 sockfarms.

German Khan is a close business associate of Mikhail Fridman, working with both Alfa Group and TNK-BP. The Wikipedia article about him has been tagged with a conflict-of-interest warning since December 2016 which was placed there by Doc James (who was not acting in his role as WMF trustee). Doc James requested the original sockpuppet investigation into Earflaps after noticing that he had written the majority of the article. Four other now-blocked socks, including Russavia and the undeclared paid editor Glaewnis, have edited the article.

Alexander Nesis is an engineer who got his start in the shipbuilding industry. He founded the ICT Group, which owns companies in the engineering, precious metals, and finance industries. Though the Wikipedia article on Nesis is fairly modest and well written, he may deserve the rank of oligarch. He is ICT Group's largest shareholder and had a net worth of $2.9 billion in 2020.

Mofgl68, an editor working for Bell Pottinger, was a single purpose account, who only edited the Nesis article, with one edit to ICT Group. Other blocked sockpuppets editing the article were Mddkpp and Oranjblud, who were blocked during the same sockpuppet investigation, as well as LamdaGr, and DeltaGr who was part of the Mikenew1953 sockfarm.

Andrei Skoch began his professional life as a banker and then met Usmanov and entered the metals industry, and eventually became a shareholder in Lebedinsky Mining, and Metalloinvest. In 1999 he was elected to Russia's Duma. The Guardian reported in 2012 that he was suspected of having ties to the mafia group Solntsevskaya Bratva.^[11] In 2020 his net worth was reported at over $6 billion. He hired RLM Finsbury as his PR firm – which also represented Usmanov at about the same time. Finsbury tried to remove information about Skoch's ownership of the yacht Madame Gu from a social media website.^[12]

Only two editors to have been blocked for sockpuppeting after editing the Wikipedia article about Skoch, including DeltaGr, part of the Mikenew1953 sockfarm. The now-blocked paid editor Glaewnis also edited the article.

Conclusion

We do not conclude that all of the above named oligarchs used paid editors to whitewash the Wikipedia pages about themselves. There is little doubt, however, that Alisher Usmanov hired the PR firm RLM Finsbury who then edited his Wikipedia article. Finsbury admitted as much in 2012. The evidence on Arkadiy Abramovich and Alexander Nesis is almost as strong. Bell Pottinger admitted that they edited the Wikipedia articles of their clients, though they did not mention the specific clients. Wikipedia's checkusers were then able to identify the Bell Pottinger paid accounts, including one which edited the Arkadiy Abranovich article and another which edited the Alexander Nesis article.

The evidence on the other five oligarchs is circumstantial. Fifty now-blocked sockpuppets or paid editors edited the article on Roman Abramovich, thirty edited the Deripaska article, but only six edited the Fridman article, only five edited the German Khan article, and only three edited the article on Skoch. The pattern of editing by the same sockpuppets or sockfarms suggests that a network of sockpuppets were used to edit many articles about oligarchs.

• Earflaps and the MusicLover650 sockfarm edited at least four of these articles – Roman Abramovich, Deripaska, Fridman, and Khan.
• The Mikenew sockfarm edited at least four – Usmanov, R. Abramovich, Nesis and Skoch
• The Antony1821 sockfarm also edited at least three of these articles – Usmanov, R. Abramovich, and Fridman.
• The now-blocked paid editor Glaewnis edited at least three – Fridman, Khan and Skoch
• The BurritoSlayer sockfarm edited at least two – Deripaska and Fridman
• The former Wikimedia Commons administrator Russavia edited at least two – R. Abramovich and Khan.

Notes

The ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in a considerable amount of coverage of Wikipedia's coverage of the war. But there were a number of other Wikipedia stories in the media on other topics, so if war articles aren't of interest to you, scroll on down and click away.

Russia and Ukraine

• From Stephen Harrison in Slate, a journalist who has long covered Wikipedia, came an article on March 1st. His article, "How the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Playing Out on English, Ukrainian, and Russian Wikipedia", goes in depth on the many debates and discussions that have blossomed across the three wikis since the invasion began. The article also provides some backdrop on the endless discussions about whether to title our article on Ukraine's capital Kiev or Kyiv, which finally resulted in a move from former to latter in July 2020.

• Russians Are Racing to Download Wikipedia Before It Gets Banned. by Annie Rauwerda, also in Slate. reports how Russians are downloading offline 29 gigabyte copies of Wikipedia through Kiwix offline browser.
  • Entrepreneur magazine also covered Kiwix and the download statistics (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/422843)

• Morning Brew from Business Insider gives a broader, slap-dash overview of the war as covered by social media in How the Ukraine war is being experienced on social media. This story leads with the Wikipedia article 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and explains it all in one paragraph.

• A San Francisco Examiner article, "Russia’s Wikipedia volunteers risk their freedom for truth", examines the problem of editing Wikipedia in a country where free speech is under fresh attack. See News and Notes for more.

• An opinion piece in the Financial Times by John Thornhill, entitled "The truth about war is messy — just read Wikipedia", was released March 18th. Thornhill, a former bureau chief in Moscow for the newspaper, generally lauds the work of Wikipedians during the war and concludes that "it may be far from ideal that an online encyclopedia carries ever-changing, contested and kaleidoscopic versions of reality in different language editions", but attributes this messiness not to Wikipedia, but to reality - "the truth is messy." (subscription required)

• Russia can't catch a break: A deputy chairman of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation complained that Wikipedia (both Russian and others) was becoming a "bridgehead for informational war against Russia", and stated that Russian law-enforcement agencies identified 13 persons carrying out "politically engaged editing" of Wikipedia's articles, and about 30,000 bloggers, "participating in informational war against Russia". (rapsinews.ru – RAPSI, formerly RIA Novosti)
• Russia and Wikipedia: According to Novaya Gazeta, pro-Kremlin structures related to Yevgeny Prigozhin are actively involved in doxing "coordinators of an informational attack on Russia" including Wikipedia's editors. Novaya Gazeta is one of the few Russian newspapers which do not bow down to the Kremlin. Last year its editor Dmitry Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work done at the newspaper. It also reports that Special Communications Service of Russia (the division of Federal Protective Service) employees are trying to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda through editing Wikipedia's articles.^[1] – B, G, S

Even their yachts have articles

People enjoy reading about the recent seizures of Russian oligarchs' yachts, according to the Washington Post. They mention in passing that some of these yachts "have their own Wikipedia pages", without mentioning which ones. The Signpost knows: see Eclipse, Dilbar, Nord, and a dozen more on the list of motor yachts by length, and A at list of large sailing yachts. – S

Sexual Assault Allegations Vanished ...

The Intercept documents that "an IP address at the [State of Missouri] Office of Administration building" erased information from the biography of Steven Roberts on February 7. A spokesman for the state senator denied knowing about the edits and added, "As you are aware, Wikipedia is an unregulated, unedited, largely unsourced mass of information that is often inaccurate because anyone can post almost anything." -S

In brief

• The Noosphere and Wikipedia: Human Energy, a group of academics, published an interview with Wikipedia user Risker on how the noosphere relates to Wikipedia.
• Android & butts love Cleopatra: Input magazine reported on the mysterious phenomenon of Cleopatra's Wikipedia article being constantly trending, receiving high amounts of pageviews. The culprit appears to be Google Assistant: one of the suggested searches says "Try saying "Show Cleopatra on Wikipedia."
• Lenin did not say "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen," according to an occasional Wikipedian in Stuff. She goes on to explain how New Zealanders could better use Wikipedia. This includes History is written as it happens by Wikipedia
• Things are looking brighter in Kashmir with a revival in editing the Kashmiri Wikipedia according to the English-language newspaper Brighter Kashmir. The Kashmiri language is spoken by seven million people in Kashmir – in both the Indian controlled area and the Pakistani controlled area. The article doesn't mention how many speakers live in the Chinese controlled area, but presumably they are blocked from reading or editing by the Chinese. There are currently 30 active editors. Kashmir language Makes it to Wikipedia
• A history of Wikipedia since the 1960s: The student newspaper The Mancunion gives you everything you need to know about Wikipedia's history in 1,031 words. Starting with hacker culture in the 1960s, the article covers the broad strokes of the internet, the worldwide web, and even Nupedia before it gets to Wikipedia proper. Coverage after that is a bit sketchy, but the broad strokes are there and pretty much correct. If you want a history of Wikipedia that you can read in less than five minutes, this one is for you.
• Loser.com: "It's unclear exactly when Loser.com first started pointing towards Putin's Wikipedia entry." Mashable (see previous Signpost coverage)
• Vandalized biography of living person: A parliament spokesperson decried hoax editing to the biography of Jacob Oulanyah, the Speaker of the 11th Parliament of Uganda, saying he was dead. (The Monitor (Uganda))
• Putting the nerd in "Nerdist": Nerdist found MetalBallStudios' infographic comparing the road networks of many nations, drawing its data from Wikipedia, "super compelling". You might have seen MetalBallStudios do starship comparisons and other graphics against a 3D model of Manhattan.
• Molly's famous now: Fast Company is the latest to feature an interview with GorillaWarfare about her views on cryptocurrencies, DAOs and Wikipedia. here
• Wiley opens up to editors: 22,000 books and over 1,600 journals will be available for free for high-frequency Wikipedia editors [3] through The Wikipedia Library (The Bookseller)

Notes

The first scholarly references on Wikipedia articles, and the editors who placed them there

Reviewed by Bri

The authors of the study "Dataset of first appearances of the scholarly bibliographic references on Wikipedia articles"^[1] developed "a methodology to detect [when] the oldest scholarly reference [was] added" to 180,795 unique pages on English Wikipedia. The authors concluded the dataset can help investigate "how the scholarly references on Wikipedia grew and which editors added them". The paper includes a list of the top English Wikipedia editors in a number of scientific research fields.

English Wikipedia lacking in open access references

Reviewed by Gerald Waldo Luis

A four-author study was published by the journal Insights on February 2, 2022 titled "Exploring open access coverage of Wikipedia-cited research across the White Rose Universities".^[2] As implied, it analyzes English Wikipedia references published by universities of the White Rose University Consortium—Leeds, Sheffield, and York—and examines why open access (OA) is an important feature for Wikipedians to use. It summarizes that the English Wikipedia is still lacking in OA references—that is, those from the consortium.

The study opens by stating that despite the open source nature of Wikipedia editing, there is no requirement to link to OA sites where possible. It then criticizes this lack of scrutiny, reasoning that it is contrary to Wikipedia's goal of being an accessible portal to knowledge. Several following sections encapsulate the importance of Wikipedia among the research community, which makes OA crucial; this has been recognized by the World Health Organization when they announced they would make their COVID-19 content free to use for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has also proven to be a factor in increasing paper readerships.

Overall, 300 references were sampled for this study. The authors also added: "Of the 293 sample citations where an affiliation could be validated, 291 (99.3%) had been correctly attributed." "In total," the study summarizes, "there were 6,454 citations of the [consortium's] research on the English Wikipedia in the period 1922 to April 2019." It then presented tables breaking down these references to specific categories: Sheffield was cited the most (2,523), while York was the least (1,525). Biology-related articles cited the consortium the most (1,707), while art and writing articles cited them the least (7). As expected by the authors, journal articles—specifically from Sheffield—were cited the most (1,565). There is also a table breaking the references down by different OA licenses. York had the most OA sources cited on the English Wikipedia (56%). There are fewer sources that have non-commercial and non-derivative Creative Commons licenses. The study, however, disclaims that this is not a review of all English Wikipedia references.

In a penultimate "discussion" section, the study says that while there are many OA references, it is still "some way to go before all Wikipedia citations are fully available [in OA]", with nearly half of the sampled references paywalled, thus stressing the need for more OA scholarly works. However, with Plan S, a recent OA-endorsing initiative, the study expressed optimism in this goal. It also proposes the solution of more edit-a-thons, which usually involve librarians and researchers who can help with this OA effort. The study notes that Leeds once held an edit-a-thon too. Its "conclusion" section states that "This [effort] can be achieved through greater awareness regarding Wikipedia's function as an influential and popular platform for communicating science, [a] greater understanding […] as to the importance of citing OA works over [paywalled works]."

Briefly

• See the page of the monthly Wikimedia Research Showcase for videos and slides of past presentations.

Other recent publications

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions, whether reviewing or summarizing newly published research, are always welcome.

Compiled by Tilman Bayer

"Citation Needed: A Taxonomy and Algorithmic Assessment of Wikipedia's Verifiability"

From the abstract:^[3]

"In this paper, we aim to provide an empirical characterization of the reasons why and how Wikipedia cites external sources to comply with its own verifiability guidelines. First, we construct a taxonomy of reasons why inline citations are required, by collecting labeled data from editors of multiple Wikipedia language editions. We then crowdsource a large-scale dataset of Wikipedia sentences annotated with categories derived from this taxonomy. Finally, we design algorithmic models to determine if a statement requires a citation, and to predict the citation reason."

"Psychology and Wikipedia: Measuring Psychology Journals’ Impact by Wikipedia Citations"

From the abstract:^[4]

"We are presenting a rank of academic journals classified as pertaining to psychology, most cited on Wikipedia, as well as a rank of general-themed academic journals that were most frequently referenced in Wikipedia entries related to psychology. We then compare the list to journals that are considered most prestigious according to the SciMago journal rank score. Additionally, we describe the time trajectories of the knowledge transfer from the moment of the publication of an article to its citation in Wikipedia. We propose that the citation rate on Wikipedia, next to the traditional citation index, may be a good indicator of the work’s impact in the field of psychology."

"Measuring University Impact: Wikipedia Approach"

From the abstract:^[5]

"we discuss the new methodological technique that evaluates the impact of university based on popularity (number of page-views) of their alumni’s pages on Wikipedia. [...] Preliminary analysis shows that the number of page-views is higher for the contemporary persons that prove the perspectives of this approach [sic]. Then, universities were ranked based on the methodology and compared to the famous international university rankings ARWU and QS based only on alumni scales: for the top 10 universities, there is an intersection of two universities (Columbia University, Stanford University)."

"Creating Biographical Networks from Chinese and English Wikipedia"

From the abstract and paper:^[6]

"The ENP-China project employs Natural Language Processing methods to tap into sources of unprecedented scale with the goal to study the transformation of elites in Modern China (1830-1949). One of the subprojects is extracting various kinds of data from biographies and, for that, we created a large corpus of biographies automatically collected from the Chinese and English Wikipedia. The dataset contains 228,144 biographical articles from the offline Chinese Wikipedia copy and is supplemented with 110,713 English biographies that are linked to a Chinese page. We also enriched this bilingual corpus with metadata that records every mentioned person, organization, geopolitical entity and location per Wikipedia biography and links the names to their counterpart in the other language." "By inspecting the [Chinese Wikipedia dump] XML files, we concluded that there was no metadata that identifies the biographies and, therefore, we had to rely on the unstructured textual data of the pages. [...] we decided to rely on deep learning for text classification. [...] The task is to assign a document to one or more predefined categories, in our case, “biography” or “non-biography.” [...] For our extraction, we used one of the most widely used contextualized word representations to date, BERT, combined with the neural network's architecture, BiLSTM. BiLSTM is state of the art for many NLP tasks, including text classification. In our case, we trained a model with examples of Chinese biographies and non-biographies so that it relies on specific semantic features of each type of entry in order to predict its category."

See also an accompanying blog post.

Apparently the authors were unaware of Wikipedia categories such as zh:Category:人物 (or its English Wikipedia equivalent Category:People) which might have provided an useful additional feature for the machine learning task of distinguishing biographies and non-biographies. On the other hand, they made use of Wikidata to generate a training dataset of biographies and non-biographies.

"Learning to Predict the Departure Dynamics of Wikidata Editors"

From the abstract:^[7]

"...we investigate the synergistic effect of two different types of features: statistical and pattern-based ones with DeepFM as our classification model which has not been explored in a similar context and problem for predicting whether a Wikidata editor will stay or leave the platform. Our experimental results show that using the two sets of features with DeepFM provides the best performance regarding AUROC (0.9561) and F1 score (0.8843), and achieves substantial improvement compared to using either of the sets of features and over a wide range of baselines"

"When Expertise Gone Missing: Uncovering the Loss of Prolific Contributors in Wikipedia"

From the abstract and paper (preprint version):^[8]

"we have studied the ongoing crisis in which experienced and prolific editors withdraw. We performed extensive analysis of the editor activities and their language usage to identify features that can forecast prolific Wikipedians, who are at risk of ceasing voluntary services. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which proposes a scalable prediction pipeline, towards detecting the prolific Wikipedians, who might be at a risk of retiring from the platform and, thereby, can potentially enable moderators to launch appropriate incentive mechanisms to retain such `would-be missing' valued Wikipedians."

"We make the following novel contributions in this paper. – We curate a first ever dataset of missing editors, a comparable dataset of active editors along with all the associated metadata that can appropriately characterise the editors from each dataset.[...]

– First we put forward a number of features describing the editors (activity and behaviour) which portray significant differences between the active and the missing editors.[...]

– Next we use SOTA machine learning approaches to predict the currently prolific editors who are at the risk of leaving the platform in near future. Our best models achieve an overall accuracy of 82% in the prediction task. [...]

An intriguing finding is that some very simple factors like how often an editor’s edits are reverted or how often an editor is assigned administrative tasks could be monitored by the moderators to determine whether an editor is about to leave the platform"

References

I love poets, painters and pianists. I even like some politicians. I like people from Russia. I like people from Ukraine. I like people from a lot of countries. I can't bear the thought of houses and cities being destroyed that were once the place of birth of people whose books, music and paintings I love. Here are photos of some of the people whose work I admire – and who were born in Odessa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Lviv, Dvirkivshchyna or Bolshoy Fontan. Nationality isn't important. Culture is. I hope that once we will only remember Charlie Chaplin, and not the dictator he made look ridiculous.

• 

  Lesya Ukrainka
  born in Novohrad-Volynskyi, 1871

• 

  Kazimir Malevich
  born in Kyiv, 1879

• 

  Anna Akhmatova
  born in Odessa, 1889

• 

  Mikhail Bulgakov
  born in Kyiv, 1891

• 

  Isaac Babel
  born in Odessa, 1894

• 

  Ilya Ilf
  born in Odessa, 1897

• 

  Golda Meir
  born in Kyiv, 1898

• 

  Yevgeny Petrov
  born in Odessa, 1902

• 

  Vladimir Horowitz,
  born in Kyiv, 1903

• 

  David Oistrakh
  born in Odessa, 1908

• 

  Sviatoslav Richter
  born in Zhytomyr, 1915

• 

  Emil Gilels
  born in Odessa, 1916

• 

  Simon Wiesenthal
  born in Buchach, 1908

• 

  Zbigniew Herbert
  born in Lviv, 1924

• 

  Mark Taimanov
  born in Kharkiv, 1926

• 

  Andriy Shevchenko
  born in Dvirkivshchyna, 1976

No to war

• 

  Moscow, 24 Febr. 2022

• 

  London, 24 Febr. 2022

• 

  Berlin, 3 March 2022

• 

  Paris, 5 March 2022

As Sting said in 1985 (and again in a new version on Instagram in 2022^[1]):
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

The Discussion Report is back, and here to stay! The editors of The Signpost regret that the past four months were not covered. We have attempted to summarize in-depth some previous discussions and briefly report on others. Please review the archives of Wikipedia:Centralized discussion or various other logs to see further discussions.

Major changes to WP:NSPORT

For extensive coverage of this discussion's origins, see the January deletion report.

A discussion was initiated on 27 January 2022 with many proposals regarding changes to the subject notability guideline WP:NSPORT. 13 subproposals were created.

• Proposal 1 suggested making athlete biographies required to demonstrate GNG when notability is challenged at WP:AFD. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 2 suggested making the guideline explicitly state articles can not use database, personal, or team pages as basis of creation. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 3 suggested removing all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events. There was consensus for the proposal.
• Proposal 4 proposed modifying all provisions of NSPORTS that provide that participation in "one" game/match such that the minimum participation level is increased to "three" games/matches. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 5 suggested implementing a requirement that all sports biographies and sports season/team articles must, from inception, include at least one example of significant coverage from a reliable, independent source. Mere database entries would be insufficient for creation of a new biography article. There was consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 6 proposed creating a PROD variant for articles that do not meet the standards set by proposal 5. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 7 suggested removing all NSPORTS-related guideline, except for a reminder to follow WP:GNG, and a requirement that articles can not use database, personal, or team pages as part of an assertion of notability. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 8 proposed rewriting the introduction to clearly state that GNG is the applicable guideline, and articles may not be created or kept unless they meet GNG. There was partial consensus for this proposal.
• Proposals 9 and 11 suggested rewriting the lead of NSPORTS. There was no consensus for these two proposals.
• Proposal 10 would require editors to do research and provide summary statistics based on a random sample of articles within 30 days in order to justify particular sections of the guideline or else those section will be removed. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 12 was moved to the talk page of Wikipedia:Notability as a more appropiate venue.
• Proposal 13 proposed that no more subproposals be created, and was passed.

Wugapodes, RandomCanadian, and Cbl62 collectively closed all of the subproposals of the discussion. – E

Administrator activity requirements poised to be heightened

A major request for comment (RfC) on administrator activity requirements was opened on 17 March by Arbitration Committee member Worm That Turned. The current standard, adopted in 2011, requires that an admin be completely inactive for a year before their bit may be removed. Many admins are only marginally active—less than half have made more than 30 edits in the past two months—and multiple ArbCom proceedings in recent months have centered on questionable behavior from marginally active legacy admins. The proposal suggests increasing the minimum to an average of 20 edits per year over five years. The (active) community appears highly enthusiastic about the idea, with the 10 oppose !votes as of press time barely noticeable in a blizzard of 170 supports. The only real question is whether there will be consensus for a further heightened standard of an average of 100 edits per year over three years first raised by ArbCom member Barkeep49. ^[2] – Sd

User access level requirements for deprecation RfCs

A Request for Comment regarding whether source deprecation RfCs should require certain user access levels (e.g. autoconfirmed, extendedconfirmed) was opened on 11 January 2022. Editors discussed a variety of viewpoints. Many editors supporting Option 1 (the status quo no protection) pointed to previous deprecation RfCs where users that were sockpuppeting were all extendedconfirmed. An example provided was The Jewish Chronicle RfC. They expressed concerns that this change would not benefit discussions for the majority of deprecation RfCs. Other contributors expressed protecting these discussion pages goes against User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles and WP:RULECREEP. Meanwhile, editors supporting Option 2/3 (protection) cited that if only more experienced editors were allowed to participate, quality of discussions will improve, and that deprecation RfCs are already in a very complicated field inside Wikipedia that newcomers might not understand or even have strong opinions for. The RfC was closed on 2 February 2022 with general consensus to keep the status quo of no protection. This close did not override consensus regarding ARBPIA-related RfC protections. – E

In brief

This section covers discussions that were not covered in-depth above, in chronological order.

• Talk header: SilkTork proposed that the {{Talk header}} template be allowed to be added to any talk page, including new ones, on 31 October 2021. Consensus was determined by Scottywong on 10 March 2022 that the current guidelines around the template were too restrictive, but there was no concrete consensus on specific changes to the documentation. However, there was consensus that the template should not be mass-added to pages using automated or semi-automated tools.
• Reliability of GNS: Contributor FOARP posted to the reliable sources noticeboard on 8 November 2021 seeking clarification on whether GNS (the GEOnet Names Server) was a reliable source. ProcrastinatingReader closed the discussion on 27 December 2021, finding consensus that the source was generally reliable for locations & coordinates, generally unreliable for feature classes, and that it does not satisfy the "Legal recognition" requirement of WP:GEOLAND.
• Deletion discussion for ARV: Spartaz opened a Miscellany for deletion discussion on 6 January 2022 to delete Wikipedia:Administrative action review, a forum opened after community consensus was established in a Request for Comment. RL0919 concluded the discussion on the same day with a result of "speedy keep", citing that MfD was not the proper venue for the discussion, and suggesting that a Request for Comment would be the most appropriate next step.
• Main page volunteer note: Jayen466 suggested that a note regarding how Wikimedia Foundation projects are edited by volunteers be added to the Main Page on 30 December 2021. Strong support for the change was ascertained by MSGJ on 18 January 2022. ^[2]
• Community Wishlist Survey: The Community Wishlist Survey 2022 opened for proposals on January 10, 2022 and opened for voting on January 28, 2022. Please see the Technology Report for previous coverage of the Wishlist. ^[2]
• First pillar: SportingFlyer suggested removing the mention of "almanacs and gazeteers" in the first pillar on 17 December 2021. GRuban closed the discussion on 9 February 2022, finding consensus for the status quo. ^[2]
• DS topic areas: As initially covered in the January and February arbitration reports, the Arbitration Committee requested the feedback of community members regarding removing certain discretionary sanctions topic areas which were among the oldest and did not reflect the current state of consensus among the community.
• TFA running period: Sdkb proposed to adjust the TFA (Today's featured article) running period from the status quo of not allowing articles to run twice in 5 years, to a specific proposal involving tiered rules regulated with vital article classification. This was posted on 4 January 2022. Isabelle Belato closed the discussion on 23 February 2022, finding no consensus and suggesting further workshopping and discussion. ^[2]
• 2022 steward elections: The 2022 Stewards Elections opened on 7 February 2022 and closed on 26 February 2022. For further coverage, please see News and Notes. ^[2]
• UCoC enforcement ratification: The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines finished the drafting stage on January 24, 2022. The Wikimedia Foundation submitted the guidelines for community ratification on March 7, 2022, and the voting period closed on March 21, 2022. The result of the vote was not available before the publication deadline. For further coverage, please see News and Notes. ^[2]
• Draftification of older articles: Chess proposed on 9 February 2022 banning the draftification (moving to draftspace) of any article over 90 days old without consensus being determined at Articles for Deletion. Joe Roe found rough consensus for the proposal on 24 March 2022, but weaker consensus for many other aspects of implementing it. The closer suggested more discussion on the topic.
• Ukraine-related DYKs: SL93 questioned whether DYKs (Did you Know hooks) relating to Russia and Ukraine should be allowed to appear on the main page. Compassionate727 closed the discussion, summarizing a consensus that Russia and Ukraine-related hooks should be scrutinized more carefully for compliance with community policy, and that it is generally fine for these types of hooks to be approved.

Disclosures

2022 Wikimedia Hackathon

The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 is taking place as a hybrid event on May 20–22, 2022. The Hackathon will be held online and there will be grants available to support local in-person meetups around the world. The Hackathon is for anyone who contributes (or wants to contribute) to Wikimedia’s technical areas – as code creators, maintainers, translators, designers, technical writers and other technical roles. You can come with a project in mind, join an existing project, or create something new with others. The choice is yours! Newcomers are welcome. If you have any accessibility or translation requests, please contact hlepp@wikimedia.org. A Wikimedia Hackathon is a space for the technical community to come together and work together on technical projects, learn from each other, and make new friends. The Hackathon will primarily be held online. Local affiliates can also apply for grants to host in-person local meetups. Meetups can be anything from social gatherings with food, to a party for watching the opening or closing ceremony, to renting a venue where people can participate together in the online event. The Code of Conduct for Wikimedia's Technical Spaces will be in effect throughout the event, on all platforms, discussion channels, and at local meetups. Please have a look at it and ensure you are willing and able to follow it.

Desktop Improvements from the Web team

It has been almost 12 years since the current default desktop skin (Vector) was deployed. Since then, web design, as well as the expectations of readers and editors, have evolved. At the same time, the interface has been enriched with extensions, gadgets and user scripts. Most of these were not coordinated visually or cross-wiki.

In 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation Web team took a close look at Vector. It was time to take some of these ideas and bring them to the default experience of all users, on all wikis, in an organized, consistent way. Inspired by the existing tools, The Web team decided to build out improvements to the desktop experience based on research and communities' feedback. So the Desktop Improvements project began.

Its goals are to make Wikimedia wikis more welcoming, increase the utility for viewing, and maintain the utility for editing. The Web team measures the increase of trust and positive sentiment towards our sites, and the utility of our sites (the usage of common actions such as search and language switching).

Improvements that the team has worked on include: logo reconfiguration, a collapsible sidebar, limiting content width, moving the search widget (and other search improvements), adding a more intuitive language switcher, implementing a user menu, programming a sticky side and article header, improving the table of contents, and rearranging page tools. Next, they will make general aesthetic improvements.

Currently, on most wikis, only logged-in users are able to opt-in individually by selecting Vector (2022) in preferences. On almost 30 early adopter wikis, the changes are deployed for all by default, and logged-in users are (and will be) able to opt-out. The team increases the set of early adopter wikis gradually.

Before June 2022, they will begin conversations with all the communities of the largest wikis, including the English and German-language Wikipedias, to make the improvements default on those wikis. They are inviting everyone to an open meeting with them which will take place on Tuesday March 29 at 18:00 on Zoom.

Sunflower, a new Commons uploading tool

Sunflower is an upload tool created by Fastily for macOS which makes it easy to batch-upload files to the Wikimedia Commons. The tool has a clean, intuitive yet featured-packed interface. The project's maintainer describes it as a simple and fresh take on uploading files to Commons. This means it won't do everything under the sun, nor should you expect that. Sunflower is currently available for macOS Monterey (12.2 or newer). More details are on Commons.

In brief

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

• Edit Keeper^[1] (source)
• WhatLinksHere^[2] (source)
• Generate pings^[3] (source)
• GraphicReplyLink^[4] (source)

Bot tasks

Recently approved tasks

Bots that have been approved for operations after a successful BRFA will be listed here for informational purposes. No other approval action is required for these bots. Recently approved requests can be found here (edit), while old requests can be found in the archives.

• Roccerbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 12:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 8) Approved 12:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• ProcBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 10) Approved 09:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Dušan Kreheľ (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 14:22, 6 March 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• BattyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 65) Approved 14:17, 27 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 7) Approved 14:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• WOSlinkerBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 21) Approved 13:55, 27 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• WOSlinkerBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 20) Approved 15:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• DoggoBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 4) Approved 15:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• SdkbBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3) Approved 15:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TolBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 13A) Approved 20:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 6) Approved 20:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• BattyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 64) Approved 16:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TolBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 13) Approved 15:17, 23 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• WOSlinkerBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 19) Approved 17:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• WOSlinkerBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 18) Approved 09:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TolBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 10) Approved 22:25, 10 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• FastilyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 16) Approved 14:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• NovemBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 18:38, 3 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• MalnadachBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 12) Approved 10:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TolBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 11) Approved 16:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• PrimeBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 37) Approved 16:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• SdkbBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 17:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 4) Approved 17:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• Rlink2 Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 07:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• FastilyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 15) Approved 22:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• NovemBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 09:43, 16 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TheCowBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 09:43, 16 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• BattyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 62) Approved 12:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]
• TolBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 9) Approved 13:41, 5 December 2021 (UTC) (bot has flag)[reply]

Current requests for approval

Latest tech news

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2022 #12, #11, & #10. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting takes place every Wednesday from 4:00–5:00 p.m. UTC. See how to join here.

Installation code

In last month's arbitration report, we saw many discretionary sanctions reviewed, two cases involving long-time administrators, and the continuation of the case involving off-site coordination among some members of the skeptic movement (largely associated with the "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" group). This month is some more of the same, and some more of the different.

No case requests were declined in March. Two cases were processed: one was accepted and suspended, and one was closed. One motion for a topic-ban removal was enacted, one amendment was carried out, one block appeal was processed, and one request for clarification and amendment is open.

Wow, was that exciting or what?! I thought so too. Here is all of what happened (and, indeed, is happening).

Finished business

No fire, but a little brimstone

The Skepticism and coordinated editing case was closed on March 2. As I participated in this case by giving a preliminary statement, I've refrained from commenting in depth (although, for the curious, my opinion^[1] is explicated at length in said statement). That said, the case's remedies are fairly straightforward. One editor (A. C. Santacruz) was reminded to be nice, and two (Roxy the dog and Rp2006) were warned to be nice. The latter of those two, Rp2006, was also topic banned from "edits related to living people associated with or of interest to scientific skepticism, broadly construed". Additionally, the "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" group was advised that

A presence on English Wikipedia, perhaps as its own WikiProject or as a task force of WikiProject Skepticism, will create more transparency and lessen some of the kinds of suspicion and conflict that preceded this case. It could also provide a place for the GSoW to get community feedback about its training which would increase its effectiveness.

Another open-and-suspend case

On March 16, a case was opened and suspended the same day regarding Geschichte, an administrator and editor since 2004. In preliminary statements, filer Dennis Brown described a February 19 incident in which Geschichte blocked an editor (Jax 0677) during an edit war. Brown said the block was out of process, a violation of WP:ADMINACCT, and grounds for desysopping. Many others commented in support of some action being taken, or at least investigated. Geschichte's activity dropped off afterwards – since February 22, they have made just three edits, the most recent on March 13. While opinion was divided on whether this constituted a desysoppable offense, consensus was clear that Geschichte needed to be present and respond to the issues at hand. Of course, I'm not one to speak ill about people being mysteriously absent for things they really ought to be present for.^[2] At any rate, the case was accepted on the 16th, with a 10–1 motion passing to accept-and-suspend:

This case will be opened but suspended for a period of three months.

If Geschichte should return to active editing on the English Wikipedia during this time and request that this case be resumed, the Arbitration Committee shall unsuspend the case by motion and it will proceed through the normal arbitration process. Such a request may be made by email to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org or at the clerks' noticeboard. Geschichte is temporarily desysopped for the duration of the case.

If such a request is not made within three months of this motion or if Geschichte resigns his administrative tools, this case shall be automatically closed, and Geschichte shall be permanently desysopped. If tools are resigned or removed, in the circumstances described above, Geschichte may regain the administrative tools at any time only via a successful request for adminship.

Banned user to roam free

MustafaO, an editor previously indef-blocked and community-banned in April 2020 pursuant to this SPI, was unblocked on March 21 following a successful appeal. There is a whole crapload of chatter about it on the ACN talk page – nearly thirty two thousand bytes of it, to be exact.

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy – it just plays one on TV

Several discretionary sanctions procedures and templates were altered in an amendment process that began on March 15. Edge-of-your-seat thrills included combining multiple topic areas into a single {{Ds/alert}} transclusion, and adding a lead section to WP:AC/DS to summarize the system. The changes were approved on March 22.

Topic ban lifted

On March 22, a motion was passed lifting Supreme Deliciousness's topic ban (issued as Remedy 8 of the Kurds and Kurdistan case covered in February's arbitration report).

Get your kicks on AE 66

Additionally, there were 66 total actions in March's arbitration enforcement log. Most were in common arb enforcement areas (AP2, BLP, COVID-19, EE, and the like), although there was a rare instance of a ARB911 semi-protection.

Ongoing business

One open ARCA for the happiest little DS area on en.wp

Currently, there is one open request for clarification and amendment, relating to Palestine-Israel topics. This concerns the vagaries of extended-confirmed protection as it applies to articles and talk pages covered by applicable sanctions.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones members in the eye of the storm

Yesterday saw a new case request, WikiProject Tropical Cyclones Discord. This request, filed by TheresNoTime, concerns alleged off-wiki canvassing by two members of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones (MarioProtIV and Hurricane Noah) on an instant-messaging group maintained by the project. The aged and wise among us will remember when this was called "IRC", "AIM" or "ICQ". Now it is called "Discord", which seems fitting, since people are always arguing about it. Previously, the issue was brought up in an ANI thread by Compassionate727 (also a party to the requested case) – it's been brought to ArbCom due to privacy issues concerning logs of off-wiki discussions. Currently at 6–0–0, it looks quite likely to be accepted.

Notes

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Kingsif, SSSB, YttriumShrew, Igordebraga, TheJoebro64, Mcrsftdog.

Red and green light this is real, and so you go to war (February 20 to 26)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Ukraine		6,749,176		Where to begin? A long, long, time ago, the hardiest of early humans decided to settle in the cold, cold shadow of the Ural Mountains. Fast forward some millennia and different groups of these people lived in different cities and had different ideas, as ever aware of the perpetual human conundrum of empathy and understanding. In this land was born an Empire, led by Russia (#9). As empires must, it fell, and so emerged a new empire, a nation of states under one ideology, the Soviet Union (#10). Russia was still the big brother. In this union, comrade Putin (#3) was given certain powers, working intelligence that had him straddle politics and military. Reportedly, his enamoration with the union's ideals was second to none, and he did not take it well when this empire, too, fell. Spectacularly. Out of big brother's shadow emerged Ukraine (#1), the nation of Mila Kunis, endless "Chernobyl fallout" jokes, and surprisingly good Eurovision entries. A new idea came to its people, many of whom identified only as its people, with this Western thing called democracy. It was not the only element of the political West that Ukraine began to adopt over the next three decades, moving ever further from its past leaders and brothers, while physically staying tucked right next to them. Washington, D.C., 1949. A group of Western nations fear the influence and attack capabilities of the Soviet Union and sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating an organisation (#6) to uphold it. A new empire, but without administrative powers. Over the next seventy years, more and more nations asked to become members (#8) – including, ultimately, many former Soviet nations still fearing Russia. Alone, they were small along Big Red's borders. With NATO, they became absorbed into a formerly-hostile blob sludging further east, promising defence but requiring reciprocity. If you take out a globe, Russia looks as big as it sounds – hi, Siberia – but for all its land, it is sorely lacking in sea, an historic marker of power and present marker of independent trading capacity. The Arctic to the north is not only inhospitable, but must pass Scandinavia or North America – or shimmy around the Baltic. Ships from Kaliningrad still must pass the UK. North America and Japan await before the Russian Far East can sail into Asian waters. In Europe, Ukraine – the Crimean peninsula – blocks the way through the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. It is the last channel out that is away from a union able to water-lock Russia from all directions in one action. The Balkans join NATO through the early 2000s. In 2014, new tensions (#4) fully kick off. The Ukrainian president is deposed for swerving back towards Russian, rather than EU, influence. Independence referendums are held in the Donbas, regions of Ukraine closest to Russia with large separatist movements. The referendums are not recognised by the international community. Russia supports uprisings in the Donbas to attempt to enforce these referendums by force; it also seizes Crimea, but fails to take any land connecting its mainland to the peninsula. Ukrainian waters are still in the way. Unrest sizzles. Ukraine dams the water supply to Crimea. Russia holds a Winter Olympics. Two years later it gets kicked out of a Summer Olympics, and two years after that holds a World Cup. Kyiv, 2019. A comedian, Zelenskyy (#5), wins the Ukrainian presidential election. Another television personality leading a country, and so close to Russia? Some were skeptical. Would Putin see him as an easy man to conquer? Russia and Ukraine agree to scale back tensions by the end of the year. In 2020, Zelenskyy announces his plans for Ukraine to join NATO. In 2021, NATO agrees to help them on their way to membership, needing no active conflicts first. Putin begins espousing the historic connections of Russia and Ukraine. A lot. He begins amassing his troops on the border. Few believed he would cross it. This week, he did (#2).
2	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine		5,939,016
3	Vladimir Putin		5,150,084
4	Russo-Ukrainian War		3,676,985
5	Volodymyr Zelenskyy		3,615,762
6	NATO		3,278,049
7	Anna Sorokin		2,928,999		Sorokin is the only thing preventing a top-ten monopoly of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis. She was born in the Soviet Union (#10), but her place on the list comes from being the subject of a Netflix show. From a quick, distracted, read of our article on her, it looks like she pretended to be an heiress and committed a lot of service theft: pictured is a hotel she lived in and was kicked out of for never paying.
8	Member states of NATO		2,667,378		See #1-6 (it's just easier that way)
9	Russia		1,590,249
10	Soviet Union		1,334,085

For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown (February 27 to March 5)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine		7,647,610		Last week, Russia under #2 launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor to the south-west, marking the largest war in Europe since World War II. They initially had hopes of a quick, relatively bloodless victory, but after their campaign stalled on the ground, they've shifted to an increasingly destructive bombing campaign against civilian areas, driving Europe's largest refugee crisis in recent history. International condemnation has followed, with large-scale sanctions inflicted on Russia in retaliation.
2	Vladimir Putin		5,065,066		When he rose to power in 1999, few would have predicted that this relatively unknown former KGB head would last very long, let alone become an international pariah. Yet here we are, 22 years later, as Vladimir Putin launches an invasion of Ukraine. The autocrat of Russia has committed far too many great crimes over the years; we can only hope this will be his last.
3	Ukraine		4,004,528		The second-largest country in Europe (by area) has been the centre of the world since Russia invaded it. Ukraine has resisted the invasion, with most main centres and most of the rest of the country remaining under Ukrainian control.
4	Volodymyr Zelenskyy		3,996,019		In 2019, a man previously known as a TV star and comedian was elected as the President of Ukraine in a landslide. Despite the mandate, few outside Ukraine took him seriously. Less than three years later, however, Zelenskyy has become the most recognisable face of Ukraine’s defence against Russia; he has been called a national hero and compared to Winston Churchill, and his leadership in the face of the invasion has been widely celebrated.
5	Russo-Ukrainian War		2,801,753		While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a recent development, Russia has effectively been at war with Ukraine since 2014, when it annexed Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass.
6	The Batman (film)		2,302,070		The article that would be our #1 if a war wasn't going on. The first big superhero film of 2022 is director Matt Reeves' (of Planet of the Apes fame) reinvention of DC Comics' Batman, featuring Robert Pattinson as the seventh actor to don the cape and cowl. The dark, violent, and insanely long The Batman also stars Aquaman's stepdaughter Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as a Zodiac Killer-inspired Riddler, and a nearly unrecognizable Colin Farrell as the Penguin. The film has received rave reviews (as someone who was lucky enough to attend an early screening, I can confirm the reviews do not lie) and is poised to make a splash at the box office this weekend.
7	Shane Warne		2,024,682		The Australian legbreak known as the “King of Spin” (although Sri Lankans might disagree with that) died this week of a suspected heart attack. One of the best of his kind, Warne set the world record for most Test wickets over a long career marred with controversy over his life off the field.
8	NATO		1,736,704		#2 was vehemently opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanding further east, and #1 demonstrates why, because if prospective member #3 was in NATO, armed retaliation against Russia would be imminent.
9	Anna Sorokin		1,683,674		The subject of Inventing Anna continues to draw in the views, despite the show having been released nearly a month ago.
10	Thermobaric weapon		1,678,849		This highly destructive type of bomb has allegedly been used by the Russian army in its bombing campaigns.

Blood feeds the war machine, as it eats its way across the land (March 6 to 12)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Vladimir Putin		3,815,361		As the invasion enters its third week, #1 gets accused of more war crimes in every passing week, not surprising, as it follows the same tactics as the Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war. Meanwhile, Europe (mostly Poland) deals with the biggest migrant crisis since the Second World War, with 3.2 million refugees (as of 14 March, 1.8 million going to Poland alone).
2	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine		3,617,897
3	The Batman (film)		2,348,440		Breaking up the horrors of war is the tension of living in Gotham City. An exceptionally made, even if fairly long, superhero movie that emphasizes why Batman is known as the World's Best Detective (Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight has to go through much investigation against a Zodiac Killer-inspired Riddler), The Batman opened to glowing reviews and has shown that like Spider-Man: No Way Home, superhero movies will make money as if there wasn't a pandemic, with an opening of $134 million in the US alone.
4	Ukraine		1,450,466		Ukrainian cities continue to be destroyed, with the Siege of Mariupol seeing some of the worst fighting and the highest levels of casulties (the highest estimates suggest the siege has 20,000 civilian casulties, more than the rest of the war put together).
5	Russo-Ukrainian War		1,212,786
6	Anna Sorokin		1,197,275		This here writer confesses all this attention on Wikipedia made him start watching Inventing Anna, chronicling another Russian doing unsavory things – though at least Sorokin (played with an unusual accent by the woman on the left, Julia Garner) only caused financial damage as she pretended to be an heiress to infiltrate New York's high society.
7	Volodymyr Zelenskyy		1,189,635		The actor/comedian, turned Ukrainian president, turned war-leader remains defiant, refusing to yield any part of his country without a fight.
8	Elizabeth Holmes		887,288		HBO already made a documentary about Theranos and how their would-be revolution in clinical tests turned out to not work at all. And now Hulu is doing a miniseries where Amanda Seyfried plays the company's CEO whose ambitions were only matched by her willingness to lie her way to the top (and eventual bottom – Holmes managed the feat of being worth $4.5 billion in 2015 and $0 the following year, and earlier this year was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors).
9	Deaths in 2022		866,600		I'm so insecure, I think That I'll die before I drink...
10	International Women's Day		744,903		March 8 is the date of this holiday celebrating the achievement of women, and a reminder they still need to fight for their rights.

Blackout weaves its way through the cities (March 13 to 19)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	The Kashmir Files		2,623,323		One of India's latest big movies, The Kashmir Files portrays the story of a teacher from the Kashmir Valley fleeing the insurgency in Kashmir in 1990. The film has become a box-office hit, and its cinematography was generally praised, as were the performances of the cast. The film has been actively promoted by India's ruling party, the BJP, and has been exempted from taxation in most states it governs. If you know much about the BJP, however, what comes next will not surprise you. The film, which portrays the insurgency as a genocide, has been highly controversial, with critics accusing it of historical revisionism and attempting to stir up Islamophobia, and some calling it Hindu nationalist propaganda.
2	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine		2,571,989		The invasion drags on into its fourth week, having failed to accomplish its goal of a quick victory. With the war stagnating, there's not much to write, other than that it continues to be awful.
3	William Hurt		2,092,026		William Hurt died at the age of 71 of prostate cancer, finishing off an acting career that included an Academy Award for Kiss of the Spider Woman, and at times causing big impact in just one scene (he had an Oscar nomination for the less than 10 minutes he appears in A History of Violence!). The Marvel Cinematic Universe crowd in particular lamented that they won't see Hurt's Thunderbolt Ross become the Red Hulk bar a recast.
4	Vladimir Putin		1,953,038		The president of Russia has now been accused of war crimes by multiple governments.
5	Scott Hall		1,646,861		A professional wrestler and member of the WWF Hall of Fame, Hall, aka Razor Ramon, passed away this week.
6	The Batman (film)		1,266,594		He is vengeance, he is the night, he is at the top of the box office for the third week in a row. Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight has already grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide.
7	Turning Red		1,055,852		Pixar has complained about having their last three features relegated to Disney+ while Disney still put out Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto in theaters. The latest one is Turning Red, about a Chinese-Canadian teenager who has to deal with parental demands for perfectionism, getting tickets to see her favorite boy band, and the fact that strong emotions make her become a red panda. Reviews were very positive, and this here writer admits the movie is entertaining even if not close to Pixar's best as Soul or Luca were.
8	Anna Sorokin		959,677		The fraudster and subject of Inventing Anna is still on the list. Having finished the show, this here writer understands why, it's quite a compelling series, and certainly makes one want to visit Wikipedia to confirm if Sorokin, pretending to be rich heiress Anna Delvey, actually did those things that earn in every episode a variation on the disclaimer "This story is completely true. Except for the parts that are totally made up".
9	Vivek Agnihotri		926,017		#1 has also brought its director onto the list.
10	Saint Patrick's Day		909,332		Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was celebrated on Thursday March 17, in Ireland and around the world by the Irish, the Irish diaspora, and friends and well wishers. Actor John C. Reilly was the international guest of honour at the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Dublin city. This year Saint Patrick's day coincided with the Jewish holiday Purim and the Hindu festival Holi.

Exclusions

• Cleopatra – Turns out the consistently high views are because Google Assistant suggests people to visit the page. Still not a good enough reason for inclusion.
• These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

Wordle's impact on pageviews

The popular game Wordle which became viral recently appears to have a dramatic impact on the pageviews of the articles about its 5-letter answers. Our investigation into the last 30 Wordle answers (as of 6 Febuary 2022) and the corresponding article pageviews showed that each and every page had a large increase in view count. More coverage is to continue in a later issue. – E

The news, the memes, the group DMs, and the edit wars have been subsumed by a singular topic in the last month. Most of us know what it is; indeed, some of us are living through it. It follows, then, that article deletion discussions would take a similar tack. Indeed, the largest and most-active discussions of this month have been overwhelmingly focused on events, people, and topics related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with few exceptions. Usually, the deletion report explores a variety of different discussions, but this month they're quite similar, so I will try a different format. This is a fairly short deletion report, owing to time constraints; if you want more detailed information (including a breakdown of !voting patterns, close trends and overall activity) feel free to check out the March index of the Oracle for Deletion, which I wrote a few months ago and use to gather statistics for these reports.

Of the ten longest AfDs (by character count), six were related to the conflict in Ukraine. Of the ten most active (by !vote count), seven were Ukraine-related; four articles appeared in both lists. By characters:

• Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian journalist arrested in March after publicly voicing her opposition to the war on a live news broadcast (54 !votes, 69,497 bytes, closed "keep").
• Russian fascism (ideology), an alleged POVFORK concerning a school of far-right Russian nationalist ideology (22 !votes, 49,940 bytes, closed "no consensus").
• List of Russian generals killed during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a list of... well, you get the idea (73 !votes, 48,329 bytes, closed "keep").
• Vitaly Gerasimov, a Russian Ground Forces major general and possible member of the above-mentioned list (36 !votes, 41,284 bytes, closed "keep").
• Historical background of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, an overview article nominated for deletion by one of its editors after a dispute regarding inclusion of content in the article (10 !votes, 31,358 bytes, closed "keep").
• Azov Special Purpose Regiment, another alleged WP:POVFORK, this time about a rename of the right-wing Azov Battalion after its incorporation into the Ukrainian National Guard. (18 !votes, 31,207 bytes, currently ongoing).

By !votes:

• Mark Bernstein (Wikimedian), an edge case bringing up WP:OUTING concerns (29 !votes, 29,293 bytes, procedurally closed after WP:BLP1E concerns were addressed by a retitling of the article).
• Battle of Techno House 2022, a meme video of a Russian soldier shooting a door for no apparent reason (26 !votes, 25,020 bytes, closed "delete").
• Russian Kyiv Convoy, a procession of Russian military vehicles sent off towards the capital city of Ukraine (20 !votes, 20,996 bytes, closed "no consensus").

There were, however, some discussions representing other topics. These represented a minority of both lists: between them, only 7 concerned subjects unrelated to the war in Ukraine. By characters:

• Jessica Foschi, a former competition swimmer who was disqualified from the 1995 national championships due to apparent steroid use (16 !votes, 75,443 bytes, currently ongoing).
• Werewolves in popular culture — Awoo!^[1] (18 !votes, 34,194 bytes, closed "merge").
• Checkley Sin, a Hong Kong record producer and political candidate (6 !votes, 33,660 bytes, currently ongoing).
• STANLIB, a South African asset management company currently on its second AfD nomination (3 !votes, 32,509 bytes, currently ongoing).

By !votes:

• Archishman Sarker, a scholar in the humanities suspected by many participants of writing a Wikipedia autobiography (23 !votes, 16,008 bytes, closed "delete").
• Vaush, a left-wing YouTube pundit at his second AfD nomination, dedicated to proving that new media acolytes can be just as good as traditional TV talking heads at starting drama on Twitter. (20 !votes, 26,500 bytes, still ongoing).
• Randolph Lablache, a football player whose deletion discussion invoked long-running WP:NSPORTS concerns (19 !votes, 26,183 bytes, closed "delete").

Perhaps some of you merely knew Ukraine from its other things: its deep culture, delicious food, warm locals, splendid nature. Some, though, may understand its architectural roots and political history; CNN described the country as "a former Soviet nation struggling to find its identity between Russia and western Europe", though they acknowledged it as a hidden gem. And it is.

In this month's Signpost issue, aligning with the themes of the other articles, we present some high-quality pictures of the Ukrainian landscape, before the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, arranged poetically. Perhaps this classic song can be a good companion while scrolling through this. Indeed, the message still holds true. May peace be given a chance.

• 

  Carpathian National Nature Park, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast

• 

  Potocki Mausoleum Chapel, Pechera, Vinnytsia Oblast

• 

  St. Nicholas Church and cells, Zakarpattia Oblast

• 

  Ruska Street, Lviv

• 

  Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle, Kamianets-Podilskyi

• 

  Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument, Kyiv

• 

  March of Defenders on Independence Day, Kyiv

• 

  Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater, Odessa

• 

  Vydubychi Monastery, Kyiv

• 

  Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans, Chernivtsi

• 

  Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Lviv

• 

  Cape Atlesh, Tarkhankut Peninsula, Crimea

• 

  Kyiv view with various cultural heritage monuments

• 

  Shore of the Syvash

• 

  Carpathian Biosphere Reserve

• 

  Kamianets-Podilsky Castle

• 

  Roztochia Biosphere Reserve, Lviv

• 

  Carpathian National Nature Park

• 

  Sula River, Sumy Oblast

• 

  Mount Hoverla, Eastern Beskids

See also

• More featured pictures of Ukraine
• Give Peace a Chance, the song linked earlier

In honor of World Backup Day on March 31, this month we look back at when early backups of Wikipedia were recovered, and reflect on the importance of keeping data safe. The following Signpost article, by Jarry1250, originally appeared in the 20 December 2010 edition as "Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News".

Old Wikipedia archive uncovered

“	This is the new WikiPedia! The idea here is to write a complete encyclopedia from scratch, without peer review process, etc. Some people think that this may be a hopeless endeavor, that the result will necessarily suck. We aren't so sure. So, let's get to work!	”
— Wikipedia main page, January 2001

Tim Starling, a developer and system administrator working for the Wikimedia Foundation, announced this week his discovery of backups of Wikipedia pages from February, March and August 2001, which, he said, were assumed to be permanently lost. Though it was originally thought possible that the later backups might include early revisions of Wikipedias in other major languages such as French and German, it now seems that the ad hoc nature of the backups meant that they only refer to the English-language "WikiPedia".

"I've long been interested in Wikipedia's history, and I've tried in the past to locate such backups", he said. "I asked various people who might have had one. I had given up hope." However, he uncovered two UseModWiki files which contained a record of every change made to Wikipedia from January 15 to August 17, 2001. The files are available to download here; Brian Mingus has created an online index of articles in the encyclopedia at the time (example revisions to the 'boat' article), as has Wikipedia researcher Joseph Reagle [4], who also compiled a list of the top 20 Wikipedia contributors from these early stages. Given the discovery's timing, weeks before the tenth anniversary of the English-language (and first) Wikipedia, interesting snippets (such as the one at the top of this article) are also being collated on a special "Wikipedia in the Beginning" page.

As for what happens now with the revisions – which are invaluable in terms of correctly attributing contributors to the project in line with its copyleft licence – Tim writes, "I'm developing a script which will import the dump into a modified MediaWiki instance, the idea being that I can then export XML from it [i.e. transform it into a modern style database dump] ... I'm not sure when that will be."

This Wikipedia essay, originally titled You don't need to cite that the sky is blue was started in 2007. You may edit the essay, but please do so at WP:BLUE and not on The Signpost.

Verifiability is an important and core policy of Wikipedia. Article content should be backed up by reliable sources wherever needed to show that the presentation of material on Wikipedia is consistent with the views that are presented in scholarly discourse or the world at large. Such sources help to improve the encyclopedia.

However, many editors misunderstand the citation policy, seeing it as a tool to enforce, reinforce, or cast doubt upon a particular point of view in a content dispute, rather than as a means to verify Wikipedia's information. This can lead to several mild forms of disruptive editing, which are better avoided. Ideally, common sense would always be applied, but Wiki-history shows this is unrealistic. Therefore, this essay gives some practical advice.

Not citing common knowledge and not providing bibliographic entries for very famous works is also consistent with major academic style guides, such as The MLA Style Manual and the APA style guide.

Pedantry, and other didactic arguments

Sometimes editors will insist on citations for material simply because they dislike it or prefer some other material, not because the material in any way needs verification. For example, an editor may demand a citation for the fact that most people have five digits on each hand (yes, this really happened).^[1] Another may decide that the color of the sky is actually aqua rather than blue, pull out an assortment of verifiable spectrographic analyses and color charts to demonstrate that this position is actually correct, and follow that with a demand that other editors provide equivalent reliable sources for the original statement that the sky is in fact blue. While there are cases where this kind of pedantic insistence is useful and necessary, often it is simply disruptive, and can be countered simply by pointing out that there is no need to verify statements that are patently obvious. If the alternative proposition merits inclusion in the article under other policies and guidelines it should of course be included, but it should in no way be given greater prominence because it is sourced.

Over-tagging

Wikipedia has several templates for tagging material that needs verification: inline templates for particular lines, section templates, and article templates. See Wikipedia:Template messages. Sometimes editors will go through an article and add dozens of the inline tags, along with several section and article tags, making the article essentially unreadable (see WP:TAGBOMBING). As a rule, if there are more than 2 or 3 inline tags they should be removed and replaced with a section tag; if there are more than 2 section tags in a section they should be removed and replaced with a single 'Multiple issues' tag. If there are more than two or three sections tagged, those tags should be removed, and the entire article should be tagged.

Verification tags should not be used in a POINTed fashion. Use only those tags necessary to illustrate the problem, and discuss the matter in detail on the talk page.

Over-citing

Citations should be evaluated on the qualities they bring to the article, not on the quantity of citations available. The first 1 or 2 citations supporting a given point are informative; extra citations after that begin to be argumentative. Keep in mind that the purpose of a citation is to guide the reader to external sources where the reader can verify the idea presented, not to prove to other editors the strength of the idea. Extra sources for the same idea should be added to 'Further Reading', 'See Also' or 'External Sources' sections at the bottom of the page, without explicitly being cited in the text.

Citing everything

A common misconception when improving an article, particularly towards Good Article status, is that everything must be cited to an inline source, which leads to comments such as "the end of paragraph 3 is uncited", without specifying why that is an issue. In fact, the Good Article criteria merely state that inline citations are required for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". While that covers much, most, or possibly even (in the case of biographies of living people) all content in an article, it does not imply that you must cite everything everywhere for every single article, period.

See also

• Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue, the opposition essay
• Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged
• Wikipedia:Must I add a citation?
• Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic, an essay on appropriate information
• Wikipedia:No original research § Routine calculations
• Wikipedia:Common knowledge
• Wikipedia:Don't be a WikiBigot
• Wikipedia:Wisps' Law
• Wikipedia:When to cite § When a source may not be needed
• User:Uncle G/On sources and content § There are no exceptions to everything, a user essay
• Wikipedia:Why most sentences should be cited
• Judicial notice, a legal rule that allows irrefutable, well-known facts to be introduced into evidence
• Argumentum ad populum ('Appeal to the people')
• Wikipedia:WEATHERMAN
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking § What generally should not be linked

Notes

Running MediaWiki on your own computer

MediaWiki is the software that runs Wikipedia. It is open source and is available for download for free. You can use it for offline access to the Wikipedia database, or to set up a wiki of your own.

However, MediaWiki requires other software to be able to run. The prerequisite programs are Apache/IIS, MySQL4 or later (5 or later as of version 1.19) and PHP5. When bundled together, these are referred to as AMP. They are also open source and free.

The Manual Installation Guide explains how to install MediaWiki from scratch. Note that some users may find MediaWiki software bundles and MediaWiki hosting services with one-click installation and wiki farms to be convenient alternatives to manual installation.

Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts

Many of the pages in the Wikipedia namespace have specialized redirects called "shortcuts" that can be entered into the search box. Most shortcuts start with "WP:" followed by a capitalized abbreviation of the page name. Some common shortcuts are: WP:HELP, WP:WELCOME, WP:IMAGE, WP:5P, and of course, WP:TIP. A semi-complete list of shortcuts is available at Wikipedia:Shortcuts.

A shortcut can be used in the search box or in a link. To jump to the talk page of a page with a shortcut, start with "WT:" instead of "WP:".

Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex)

Searching with regex online

To search Wikipedia live with regular expressions, use the insource: parameter, followed by your regex search string enclosed in forward slashes, like this: /regular expression/. Here is an example:

insource:/(Abraham|Abe) Lincoln/

Insource searches the wikitext version of articles; thus, wikiformatting codes can be included in the search string. If any characters you wish to find are used as special characters within regex, they will need to be "escaped" by preceding each with a backslash. For a cheat sheet on writing regexes, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression.

For case insensitive searches, include an "i" after the closing forward slash.

Searching with regex offline

To search all of Wikipedia offline using regex, you need to download the Wikipedia database and do the search offline with AutoWikiBrowser's Database Scanner. Activate it from the tools menu in AutoWikiBrowser (AWB). It returns the names of the pages that match your query, which you can have sent directly to AWB's list maker (then you can use AWB to view them all). The Database Scanner has many features, and each query can be easily configured to match, exclude, specify namespaces, ignore redirects, etc. as you see fit.

Other methods of searching Wikipedia with regular expressions

• To search Wikipedia titles with regex, use Grep.
• To search within the current page use the edit window:
  • If source editing, use the "Search and replace" dialog by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the far right of the "Advanced" toolbar.
  • If visual editing, type Ctrl-F to get the search box, then click the "(.*)" icon for regular expressions.
  • Regular expressions are also supported by the WikEd text editor gadget.
• AutoWikiBrowser can do regex search/replaces, on a list of articles that you provide it.

Getting your edit count

Instead of counting your edits 500 at a time in your contributions list, you could look up your grand total on your Preferences page. Your number of edits is listed under "Basic information", near the top of the page.

To get more details about your edits, try XTools Edit Counter, which tallies up all your edits of each area of Wikipedia, and displays the totals for each and the grand total. It also shows the number of unique pages edited, the average edits per page, number of edits still active, and how many edits have been deleted.

Transclusion vs. Substitution

There are two main ways to use templates on articles:

• Transclusion – also called "inclusion", and accomplished by using {{Template Name}}
• Substitution – notated like this {{subst:Template Name}}

Transclusion will include the content of "Template Name" on the fly whenever the article is loaded, while the latter will permanently insert the content of the template into the article. With substitution, even if the template content is modified at a later date, the article's content will not change.

Substitution is the preferred method for long-term, permanent notices because it is less confusing, and it even helps to lighten the load on the database. Substitution has the further advantage in that a template's content may be de-linked from any associated category or slightly modified to suit the circumstances, such as when the template is used on a talk page. Transclusion is preferred for displaying material that is normally updated; that way, all the places it appears are updated in a single operation.

Link to Wiktionary word definitions using "Wikt:"

You've come across a word that is crucial to understanding the article you are working on, and you want to create a link to its definition. But you find the encyclopedia article for that word would be overkill. So you want to link to its Wiktionary definition. How? It's easy. Here's an example using the word "understanding":

both [[wiktionary:understanding|]] and [[wikt:understanding|]] will look like this:

understanding

and link to the definition of the word "understanding".

Notice that the "pipe trick" (|) was used in the links above.

SuggestBot is a fun way to pick pages to edit

Let SuggestBot point the way. SuggestBot is a program that attempts to help Wikipedia users find pages to edit. It matches people with pages they might like to contribute to based on their past contributions. It uses a variety of algorithms, including standard information retrieval and collaborative filtering techniques, to make suggestions. It also sometimes points people to the Community portal, or their past edits, as a source of inspiration.

If you are looking for SuggestBot recommendations, you have these options.

1. To get a single set of suggestions:
   1. …based on articles you've edited, please follow the instructions at User:SuggestBot/Requests.
   2. …using WikiProjects you are interested in, go to the Teahouse's SuggestBot page, click on "Get suggestions", and follow the instructions.
   3. …based on a specific set of articles or categories of articles, see our SuggestBot instructions for that.
2. You can also get suggestions posted periodically to your talk page (or another page of your choosing). The instructions are described here.

Work faster with keyboard shortcuts

Wikipedia has keystroke combinations that can speed up your work, like ⇧ Shift+Alt+F to "focus" on (jump to) the search box, ⇧ Shift+Alt+M to move the current page and its talk page, ⇧ Shift+Alt+T to open the current article's talk page, ⇧ Shift+Alt+Y to open a list of your user's contributions, and many more. Those are for Microsoft Windows users. On macOS, press Control instead of ⇧ Shift+Alt. For some browsers, the access key is the Alt key instead. For details see Keyboard shortcuts.

While the news during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine can certainly be somber, it is important to always look on the bright side. Here we feature two pieces of positive news to make your day better.

Poland accepts Ukrainian refugees

As early as February 15, Poland was expecting a possible Russian attack on Ukraine. The Polish government asked communities to prepare for up to a million refugees. By 23 March 2022, more than 2.2 million Ukrainian refugees had entered Poland. Poland greatly reduced the usual border formalities, and said that various identity documents would be accepted. Assembly points for refugees have opened in every district of Poland. Local authorities are providing free accommodation, food and other necessary supplies. Apart from that, a huge number of citizens and organizations are voluntarily offering assistance, free accommodation and other help. Websites with information for refugees are also in Ukrainian. The government is preparing legal changes that would simplify employment of Ukrainians in Poland, since currently a working visa is required as Ukrainians are from outside of the EU.

President of the European Council Charles Michel visited the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing on 2 March and praised Polish efforts "to guarantee safe passages for Ukrainians, for European citizens" and those from other countries "without any discrimination". In a later interview for France Inter he denounced alleged claims of racism of Ukrainian and Polish serviceman as "Russian propaganda" and part of Russia's information warfare. Many observers believe that most are likely to stay in Poland and other Central European countries because "tight labor markets, affordable cities and a pre-existing diaspora have made those countries more appealing alternatives for Ukrainians, who find options slimmer in Europe's west".

Ship crewed by Russian military saved by Ukrainian authorities

The MV Millennial Spirit is a Moldovan chemical tanker which transports diesel fuel. Built in 1974, the ship was previously known as MV Freyja under the ownership of an Icelandic shipping firm. On 25 February 2022, the Millennial Spirit was carrying 600 tons of diesel fuel while transiting through the Black Sea. Russian warships involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine reportedly shelled the tanker 22 km (12 nmi) south of the Ukrainian port of Yuzhne while it was underway. The ship's crew were stated to be Russian by Moldova's naval agency; two were injured and all were forced to abandon ship in lifejackets. All of the crew were rescued by Ukrainian authorities, however, and those injured were sent to the hospital.