Turkish government blocking Wikipedia, and Signpost is dead

[ericbarbour]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-internet-wikipedia-idUSKBN17V06Q
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39754909

I checked--there is not a peep about this on any WMF website I can find. Not even Jimbotalk (which is still full of jabber about Wikitribune), not on Meta, not on the WMF main site, and on none of the noticeboards.

And oh BTW, the Signpost is apparently dead. Last issue was TWO MONTHS AGO. Longest gap I've ever seen. Two years ago they routinely had at least 2-3 issues every month. Are the insiders and WMF finally giving up on their only real "internal newsletter"? Why, do they simply refuse to communicate with the volunteers who keep the thing running? Going to complete the transformation into a DMOZ-style Stalinist ministate on a website, eh?

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... ignpost.3F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... a_Signpost

[Flip Flopped]

There's some more discussion about the lack of a Signpost here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom, but even that page is quiet.

[ericbarbour]

There's some more discussion about the lack of a Signpost here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom, but even that page is quiet.

Go thru the archives. Starting from issue #1 in January 2005 until a couple of years ago, there was a new issue every week--sometimes 2 per week. They put Forsyth in charge, he's basically disappeared, and now it's circling the drain. Not surprising; Mr. Forsyth is a remarkably unpleasant and dishonest guy. I expect that he's driving off anyone he doesn't like, and the people he doesn't like are the people most likely to write Signpost material.

[ericbarbour]

The Wikidiots finally noticed the Turkish ban. Doc James started a petition on Meta.

Right now I see a grand total of 37 signatures. Lol.

[Flip Flopped]

There's some more discussion about the lack of a Signpost here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom, but even that page is quiet.

Go thru the archives. Starting from issue #1 in January 2005 until a couple of years ago, there was a new issue every week--sometimes 2 per week. They put Forsyth in charge, he's basically disappeared, and now it's circling the drain. Not surprising; Mr. Forsyth is a remarkably unpleasant and dishonest guy. I expect that he's driving off anyone he doesn't like, and the people he doesn't like are the people most likely to write Signpost material.

It has to be something like that. If Forsyth were a stand-up guy, he would have resigned by now.

[Mutineer]

There's substantial discussion about the Turkish blocking of Wikipedia on the Wikimedia-l mailing list. Here's a link to its archive where you should see some at the bottom: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-April/date.html#87393.

[Flip Flopped]

There's substantial discussion about the Turkish blocking of Wikipedia on the Wikimedia-l mailing list. Here's a link to its archive where you should see some at the bottom: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-April/date.html#87393.

Thanks. Juliet Barbara wrote to WM-l on behalf of the WMF: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 87416.html.

Heilman, who is running for the BoD again, is putting together a statement on Meta. Here was a response on WM-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 87417.html.

WMF blog post by Maher: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/04/30/t ... wikipedia/.

The silly part of the mailing list discussion is the conceit that Erdogan will stop vilifying Wikipedia as propaganda while he isolates the people of Turkey from the world, killing and imprisoning teachers, academics, civilian government employees, and police.

[ericbarbour]

The silly part of the mailing list discussion is the conceit that Erdogan will stop vilifying Wikipedia as propaganda while he isolates the people of Turkey from the world, killing and imprisoning teachers, academics, civilian government employees, and police.

WMF mailing list talk is complete shit, always. Erdogan is on a "racial purity purge". He apparently wants to force out all the millions of Kurds, plus academics and intellectuals and anyone who MIGHT criticize him. Wikipedia is just minor roadkill and they could leave it blocked for years. It's nothing compared to the serious work of turning a relatively liberal Western-style democracy into a paranoid Baathist-style military dictatorship.

The mailing lists are still just as ludicrous as they've ever been--so called "movement leaders" cheerfully posting babbling idiocy and obvious lies. And getting approval from the others. Or occasionally arguments, which often leads to threads mysteriously disappearing and other happy fun.

Jeembo speaks (finally):
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... inues.html

Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people, I will always stand with you and fight for this right. #turkey https://t.co/5ZAsc9coVX
— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 29, 2017

No he won't. He'll suck up to the Erdogan regime if it meets his needs. Did it to the Kazakh regime, and the Uzbek regime.....

There's now a Jimbotalk thread. Complete with Mr. Angry Shitbrain himself, Prioryman, spluttering. And Wnt babbles again. And Jimbo says

I'm going to Turkey in 2 weeks time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:31, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Please, President Erdogan, throw him in jail! Give us some lulz!

[ericbarbour]

Lol, 28 hours ago an article was created

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_bloc ... _in_Turkey

and it was swiftly AFDed, which failed (the most notorious bits of Wiki-Scum crawled out of their holes to vote STRONG KEEP OR MERGE OR SPLUTTERSPLUTTER). The insiders want this article, and I predict it will be semi-protected and then get longer and longer and less readable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _in_Turkey

[Flip Flopped]

Quote from Heilman in the AfD (bolding added):

I would be okay with merging but I think it is likely this will become more notable as the days go on and we will need an independent page regardless. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:30, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Ha, Wikipedia will need an article on this? They are so excited to see their hobby in lights. None of this is about Wikipedia as much as it's about the repression in Turkey. I bet Wikipedia doesn't "need" independent articles on many aspects of the repression that have been covered in multiple reliable sources. Today I wanted to find out how many people have been arrested since the failed coup last summer. I couldn't find a total, but a new wave of thousands of arrests is currently underway. Seems Wikipedians could fixate on that "trivial" aspect of what living in Turkey has become, but no.