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CentralNotice/Request/2017 Wiki Conference Russia

< CentralNotice | Request

2017 Wiki Conference Russia

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Central Notice Settings

What is the campaign duration?
  • 7th October 2017 → 14th October 2017
Which projects will you be targeting?
  • WP
What languages will you be targeting?
Do you wish to show banners to Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both? Do you want to target users with a specific number of edits or average monthly?
  • Both

What countries will your campaign target?

  • Russia

Banner/Campaign Diet:

  • To be determined by Central Notice admin

What is the purpose of Campaign? How will you measure the success of the campaign?

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Description - wmru:Special:MyLanguage/Вики-конференция 2017 participant & presenter registration for 2017 Annual WikiConference Russia.

Metrics -

What banner(s) will you use? What will be your landing page?

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Banners -   Wikimedia Conference Russia — 14-15 October 2017 @ Nekrasov Library (Moscow) en / ru / others & text 4 localization

Landing Page - wmru:Special:MyLanguage/Вики-конференция 2017

Community notification text

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This is sample notification that can be used for mass message delivery to targeted WP's forums, as described @ Usage guidelines:

Experienced user's help would be greatly appreciated.--Frhdkazan (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ady / av / ba / ba / ce / crh / cv / kbd / koi / krc / kv / lbe / lez / mdf / mhr / mrj / myv / olo / os / pnt / ru / sah / tt / tyv / udm / vep / xal / az / be / bg / ceb / en / fi / hy / ka / kk / ky / rue / sr / tr / uk / uz / wmru / wmua / wmfi

Community Feedback

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Banners in Russian only

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  • The conference is in Russian, so I suggest to only run Russian-language banners. I also don't see a good reason to show banners to unregistered users, given it's a community event. (Yes, I know that often other events have abused the CentralNotice to target unregistered users; they are no precedent.) If you only target registered users who use Russian as their user interface, the project and country selection matters less. --Nemo 06:02, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Wikimedia Russia event announced in Russian-only is like Wikimania or other global WMF event announced by banners in English-only (myself & Wikipedias in the languages of Russia colleagues would see this as sensitive issue).
(2) There's specific interest in using WMRU events to target unregistered users within the Russian Federation, as
(2.1) majority of Russia's public has lots of confusion about what is Wikipedia (ex. written by WMF staff & paid editors, among others shown by respective WMF Strategy research) &
(2.2) WMRU has to run domestic outreach & education events without ability to rely on program or annual grant-support of WMF, so public visibility is a must.--Frhdkazan (talk) 08:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Running banners in Russian only means that they will not displayed to users unless they speak Russian, so no, it's not quite using English for non-English users. It might be ok to run Russian-language banners for unregistered users in countries where over 95 % of the population speaks Russian, but in that case I'd recommend making sure that there are only 1 or 2 impressions per "user" (actually per device per wiki) in the entire month. --Nemo 14:33, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Federico, please add context to what you are saying. I do not understand what you meant, certainly not as a stand-alone message.--Frhdkazan (talk) 15:14, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

English-speaking projects

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Two concerns were raised during the discussion in the Wikimedia RU mailing list:

i) The notification arrived through the mailist list only (here). None of the projects were notified directly, which contradicts the recommendation The target wikis should be notified of the Meta-Wiki discussion.
ii) The banner targets not only Russian-speaking projects, but also projects in English and in unspecified "other languages". However, the relevance of the Russian-speaking event to most of the non-Russian languages remains obscure. According to the original proposer, the goal is to chase Russian-speaking participants in every corner where they may hide (here), which looks contradictory to the rule Be as unobtrusive as possible. Regarding the topics of the conference and its organization, there are neither meaningful links nor technical opportunities that would warrant attention of a broader community. Moreover, a protest against placing the banner in English Wikivoyage was raised by one of the sysops (here).

The original proposer did not provide persuasive response to any of these concerns. Consensus for the banner is currently missing.

Ideas for further discussion:

i) Restrict the banner to Russian-speaking projects
ii) Include projects in the languages of Russia, because they are largely based in Russia, and many of them show strong interest in the event. Exclude any other languages unless they request the banner explicitly.
iii) Extend the coverage geography-wise rather than language-wise. World-wide notification of Russian-speaking projects would make sense, because it will directly target Russian-speaking participants.

--Alexander (talk) 10:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This does not really address my concerns.
First, I believe that banners should be pertinent to the project, but it remains unclear why people at English Wikipedia would be interested to know about a wiki-conference in Russia. What's the relation to the project? What's the incentive? What's the benefit?
Second, to the best of my knowledge, neither me nor anyone else proposed to exclude any Russian-speaking projects. The only concern here was about the fact of non-notifying these projects and basically making decisions for them. Even with the modified scope, this problem remains, because many languages are mentioned, but it does look like anyone tried to discuss the banner with, e.g., English Wikipedia. --Alexander (talk) 08:26, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alexander, would you be willing to help me with mass message delivery of the sample invite? Regards, --Frhdkazan (talk) 09:07, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it would be difficult, because I do not support placing such a banner in English-speaking projects, whereas Russian-speaking projects are currently excluded from this campaign and thus do not need any announcement. --Alexander (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alexander, I thought this was Russian, no? Or do you mean something else? In WMRU-mailing list (and above) you stated that as an English Wikivoyage admin, you do not want readers from Russia to see the banner there. I frankly do not get it, but it didn't seem critical for my first campaign, so I just chose to scale it down & limited it to WP only (until I understand why not). This does not mean that ruwiki is excluded, quite the opposite: Joseph told me he believes it to be appropriate to have the ruwiki banner on globally (something we discussed with you as a separate global campaign for all Wikis in the languages of Russia). This time I kept my head low & didn't ask the same for all others (so we actually have positive discrimination towards Russian). --Frhdkazan (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I mean that Russian-speaking projects beyond Wikipedia are excluded, so there is no need to notify them.
Apropos, today's changes have little to do with the original proposal and its ensuing discussion, so we probably waste our time. --Alexander (talk) 16:57, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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In the discussion hidden and in ukwiki Tavern, consensus was formed among Ukrainian community members that banner in Ukraine is undesirable for various reasons. The banner will not be shown for people in Ukraine. It must be noted though, that if ruwiki community were to decide to run a local SiteNotice then the coverage would be worldwide and without any external request for comment at all, I call for participants of this discussion to appreciate having a say in this matter. --Base (talk) 07:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion body. Contains personal attacks and political statements.
  • As a Wikimedian from Ukraine with ru-N, I strongly   Oppose setting this banner in Ukraine, am less concerned about setting it in countries with friendly relations with Russia and have no opinion on using it in Russia as I am not informed enough. The reason for my strong opposition for setting it to users of Russian Wikipedia (or of users with Russian interface) in Ukraine is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine recommends Ukrainian nationals to avoid visiting Russia. There is no English translation unfortunately but the statement by the MFA is МЗС України рекомендує громадянам України утриматися від відвідання Російської Федерації, 05.10.16 р. (MFA of Ukraine recommends Ukrainaian nationals to avoid visiting Russian Federation since 05 October 2016). The reasons provided are arbitrary detentions of Ukrainian nationals in Russia and very limited capacity of the Ukrainian government to guarantee safety to Ukrainian nationals in Russia. While there many Russian speakers in Ukraine and this conference might be of a certain interest to them, this is a conference taking place in Russia, a country they have good reasons to be advised not to visit. I find promoting such an event quite immoral, as we are not supposed to encourage Wikimedians to visit countries where their safety is not guaranteed (imagine a banner inviting Americans to visit North Korea...). This may also apply to other countries whose governments also advise their citizens to avoid visiting Russia — NickK (talk) 22:32, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Or well, a TL;DR version: a banner targeting Ukraine and promoting an event in Russia will get you into trouble — NickK (talk) 22:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for warning, dear Mykola & I'm happy to continue our Wikimania Montreal acquaintance online. Earlier this summer I've seen presenters from Kiev (either Taras Shevchenko University or Academy of Sciences) at a conference in my hometown, but this Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry warning might be of interest to Alina Vozna of Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, who is a regular attendee of Wikimedia Conference Russia. And just for the record, we had similar safety concerns expressed by Wikimedia Russia members prior to our two colleagues' travel to Wikimedia Conference Ukraine 2017 this August. Regards, --Frhdkazan (talk) 05:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @Frhdkazan: Thank you for your feedback. When Wikimedia Ukraine organised WikiConference in Ukraine, we requested a banner for all languages but for Ukraine only, which is in my view a reasonable option for a national conference. You are requesting a banner that would encourage Russian speakers from all over the world to travel to Russia, which is different. While Ukrainians may certainly decide themselves to go to Russia despite warnings (it's their personal choice), I think we should not encourage or promote this. And there is a difference between these two cases as Russian MFA has not issued any alert for Russian nationals visiting Ukraine, which means Russian government does not expect they will face any significant problems in Ukraine. I do hope Alina Vozna will not have any problems in Russia, but I would definitely not encourage any other Ukrainian nationals to do so — NickK (talk) 08:37, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Dear Mykola, I was indeed careful to limit my first banner campaign to Russia only (see my Sept.19 filing above). The idea about making Russian campaign global was voiced by WMF staff, but I admit I would love to make it so for all other languages of Russia, including my mother tongue (Tatar) and some 30 others, including Azerbaijani, Kazakh & Finnish. As for Ukrainian Wikimedia events, I see significant amount of WP readers from Russia accessing Ukrainian Wikipedia, so I would see no reason why you wouldn't want to promote your events in Russia & elsewhere on the planet. The more cooperation we have, the better it is for our Wikiverse, isn't it? --Frhdkazan (talk) 09:57, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @Frhdkazan: It does not matter who suggested it, the fact is that there is a banner promoting WikiConference Russia in all countries, including Ukraine. Another fact is that Russian-Ukrainian relations are... let's say, complicated, and as a result a banner inviting Russian speakers from Ukraine to travel to Russia (or vice versa) is very likely to cause more negative reaction than cooperation. Just try to imagine the reaction of a person reading Russian Wikipedia in Ukraine who served in the Ukrainian army fighting Russian agression and now sees a banner encouraging them to attend a conference in Russia — NickK (talk) 10:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Dear Mykola, I see Wikimedia movement as bringing people together to discuss & share openly, not preserving anger & misunderstanding by keeping them in segregated virtual worlds. That said, I'm not at all the authority around issues of sovereignty or feelings about national & other imagined communities, as I do not seem to have respective beliefs, though I am an ardent proponent of multilingualism. --Frhdkazan (talk) 15:56, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @Frhdkazan: Just to clarify: I don't see any language or culture problem here, I am pretty sure this event will follow usual Friendly space policies. The issue here is with Russia as a state: I am not sure at all that attendees from Ukraine will have reasonably safe stay in Russia, and I don't see how Wikimedians can prevent any problems due to actions of Russian state officials — NickK (talk) 17:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a Wikimedian from Ukraine with ru-N, I strongly   Oppose setting this banner in Ukraine... Per NickK. --Микола Василечко (talk) 07:04, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As community member from Ukraine which speaks russian from preschool, I claim that articles from Ukrainian Wikipedia become a source of truth and neutrality against massive Russian propaganda and Russian military intvasion to Ukraine.
I strongly   Oppose advocating any russian wiki-events which will disqualify Ukrainian Wikipedia just due to its somehow associated with Russia. Please don't do this, this is very sensitive topic in Ukraine — Alex Khimich (talk) 07:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Oleksiy, Wikimedia event in Russia is as much Russian, as it is Ukrainian, Tatar or Vepsian. Regards, --Frhdkazan (talk) 10:08, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Frhdkazan, Russia has annexed part of our teritory, Russia brought war in our country and broke all international promises it gave for our nuclear disarment. We trusted them... Now more than 10.000 people reported killed and still dying. Best patriotic youth dying, many kidnapped and injailed in Russia. When I recall that now this is common to hear daily news about next few young soliders dead I undarstand this war will not finish. Your staff is pro-russian and voted so just because your in you life never felt the death knocking to your window leaving orphans and widows. You never looked on your children last time. What WMF gonna do is unwise and shoking to our community. Alex Khimich (talk) 13:02, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The new political prisoners represent a very wide range of groups that have become victims of political repression by the State. The ‘Ukrainian trail’ can be clearly traced in the cases of the Crimean Tatars A. Chiygoz, A. Asanov and M. Degermendzhi, the Ukrainian citizens S. Klykh, M.Karpyuk, A.Kolomiyets, A.Kostenko, O.Sentsov, A. Kolchenko and S. Litvinov. The cases of Russian citizens A. Bubeyev, D. Polyudova, R. Kashapov and N. Sharina are also linked to the authorities’ anti-Ukrainian campaign. Artem.komisarenko (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • In this case my argument to   Oppose banner in Ukraine is around concerns for safety & security of WMUA, Ukrainian Wikimedians & Wikipedia access from Ukraine in a climate, which might be comparable to, if not more sensitive than, that of Turkey. I see similar concerns expressed also by some in ukwiki discussion on the subject. In this sense I   Support colleagues in requesting exclusion of Ukraine from global RuWiki campaign, which can be seen by some as a form of self-censorship by Wikimedians against freedom of self-expression. --Frhdkazan (talk) 20:54, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose Ідіть ви всі в сраку. I wish to Wikimedia staff to live through all the sufferings that ukrainians experienced from hands of russians during history.--Oleksandr Tahayev (talk) 13:18, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment:The above Ukrainian text is an obscenity directed at the Russian-speaking participants.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:04, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Not only at Russian-speaking ones. And it's much softer obscenity than Russian-speaking people usually use.--Oleksandr Tahayev (talk) 14:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess everybody can see now what level of communication culture you are at.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:20, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm ru-N, comment above is not "obscenity" for me. You must not present your private opinion as common opinion of "Russian-speaking", you are not on Russia-Today. Artem.komisarenko (talk)
  • Good day! Nicely,   Oppose and from me:

EN: Disputes between two countries: Russia and Ukraine. We all know our difficult situation and must understand each other. Try to put yourself in place of another (example, Japan with the Kuril Islands). Each side will stand on its own and it will be evermore (about this dispute). І think it is better to listen to other inhabitants of the Earth and reach consensus. This is not a place for political wars. Sorry for my english.

RU: Споры двух стран: России и Украины. В нас тяжелая ситуация и мы должны понимать друг друга. Старайтесь поставить себя на место другого (например, Япония вместе с Курильскими островами). Каждая сторона будет стоять на своем и это будет вечно (я об этом споре). Я думаю лучше послушать других жителей Земли и прийти к консенсус. Здесь не место для политических войн.

UK: Суперечки двох країн: Росії та України. Ми всі знаємо нашу важку ситуацію і повинні розуміти один одного. Старайтесь поставити себе на місце іншого (наприклад, Японія разом з Курильськими островами). Кожна сторона буде стояти на своєму і це буде вічно (я про цю суперечку). Я думаю краще послухати інших мешканців Землі та прийти до консенсусу. Тут не місце для політичних війн.

Thank you for attention!--くろねこ Обг. 14:16, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Єдиний шлях збереження України як незалежної держави в майбутньому - це повне витіснення звідси російської мови і знищення Росії.--Oleksandr Tahayev (talk) 15:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Buryat Wikipedia

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  • As a community member from Russia, I   Support setting the notice to users from the edited list. While the current political climate might be negative, it is important to remember that the Russian Wiki-Conference is neither designed nor pertaining to the national government of any country and does not carry any political agenda. Ukrainian participation is detremental to the conference, since Ukrainian Wikipedia might be the only facet for Ukrainian language use for many Russians and many Ukrainians use Russian Wikipedia. A different question is whether Russia is a safe country for travel. In this regard, I believe that the decision whether to travel to any country under any auspices remains to be the personal decision of the individuals in question. It will be sensible to include that travel warning from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in the message though.--Edler von Udinium 17:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Russia only vs global

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Frhdkazan, I was thrilled to read that "the idea about making Russian campaign global was voiced by WMF staff". For the sake of Russian-speaking community global Russian-speaking conference might be a good idea. But the conference 2017 clearly is tied to single country, not single language. (The en-version of the conference page says it is WikiConference Russia, and having addition of & WikiCON North Eurasia 2017 only on subpage in English is confusing.) This is why I would recommend having CN for a single country as well.
As for need to invite participants from outside the RF, this can be achieved by personal or group invitation. To my knowledge, this is practiced by other national WikiConferences. -- Ата (talk) 09:08, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My omission Ата, I will take care of adding & WikiCON North Eurasia 2017 to all language versions. As for CN, see requested settings above.--Frhdkazan (talk) 09:19, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see 'Russia' in the requested CN settings, but 'ruwiki globally' in community invitation. Which is relevant at this moment? I'm not sure I get it --Ата (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Ата, CN request is what I limited myself to in my first campaign. Experienced WMF staff that helped me with the banner offered to take it wider from day one and added "ruwiki globally" + same for non-WP projects (see banner settings). I obviously didn't object. For November event, I'll request global coverage for WPs in all languages of Russia.--Frhdkazan (talk) 06:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Political agenda

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To whatever Meta admins who can watch this page: Is this page really suitable to promote political agenda? I would suggest some intervention.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:12, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps not completely, but partially acted upon. In case of further escalation more forceful means will be applied. The discussion below was hidden as well. --Base (talk) 07:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Out of topic discussion. Contains personal attacks and political statements.
It's not about politics, it's about safety and dignity. Wikimedia must not provoke Ukrainian wikipedians to visiting Russia where they may became next Pavlo Hryb. Artem.komisarenko (talk) 13:44, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It is very clearly about politics, and every unbiased person will see this.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"my opinion - is opinion of every unbiased person" sounds very unbiased Artem.komisarenko (talk) 13:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ymblanter: I am sorry for starting this thread which is obviously not the funniest one. The issue is that inviting people from Ukraine to visit Russia is indeed political, and in my view every unbiased person should see this as well — NickK (talk) 14:18, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely people should give their opinions (for the record, I do not see why the banner should be shown outside Russia). However, going into discussion of details of political detainees in Russia and the circumstances of the War of Donbass is clearly over the top and should be removed from this page. Do you want people to come here and discuss the language law in Ukraine or the assassination of Pavel Sheremet? It might be an interesting Facebook discussion, but this just does not belong here and certainly does not promote free knowledge. Stating that you oppose showing the banner in Ukraine and possibly adding about the government advise against travel to Russia would be more than sufficient. And, additionally, when Ukrainian users start repeating each other verbatim, it does not make a good impression. --Ymblanter (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ymblanter, our news repeat verbatimly amount of people killed each day. The digit differs few more few less but counted with few years of war up to 10.000, ministry of foreight affairs officially recommends avoid Russia visits due to people kidnapping repeated verbatimmly each time. Alex Khimich (talk) 07:33, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure why you are pinging me. I said repeatedly that I am not interested in discussing these issues here. This page is plainly inappropriate for these discussions. Fucking stop it. Discuss it elsewhere.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:41, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Pavlo Sheremet (offtop here) killed by unknown criminal; Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Russia including kidnapped 19y Pavlo Hryb repressing by Russian authorities. Feel difference. Ukrainian users' repeating has special name in Wikimedia Glossary: Community consensus. Artem.komisarenko (talk) 14:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Go to FB and discuss it. Wikimedia Foundation projects are not for propaganda.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:37, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The highest degree of cynicism. Made precarious political proposal and sending opponents "to Facebook". Thank you for sending to FB, not FSB. Artem.komisarenko (talk) 14:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I just made an English summary of the government travel advise as most CN admins do not speak Ukrainian. Unfortunately for this discussion it was impossible to translate it without mentioning anything political — NickK (talk) 15:29, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Central Notice Admin comments

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Well,   enabled. The current set-up is 3 campaigns (and 2 banners on backstage). One shows banner in Russia in English only (5 impressions per device per day). Another shows banner in Russia in all languages that are not English and Ukrainian, it falls back to Russian when there is no translation (5 impressions per device per day). Yet another is set up worldwide but Russia and Ukraine and is only in currently ru, tt (including variants), myv, sah and ba (2 impressions per device per day). More languages of Russia are welcome to be added to the latter when the respective translations will be made. I hope that this should match expectations of most of the people. It does not show the banner to completely irrelevant people (people being in Russia and people speaking languages of Russia may indeed have some interest here), nor it tires them up with too many banner shows. I am not sure I responded to all expectations well, this page has a lot more discussion than I would like to peruse, so if there are some major faults present now feel free to poke. Also I have modified Russian text partially agreeing with Bezik's remark here. Please also poke me if it works not as intended on the technical side of it rather than decision wise. --Base (talk) 23:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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