Dear all,
Today, the WikiFocus proposal was added as a perspective sister
project.
[http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proposals_for_new_projects&curi…]
The project already exists and is owned by Vladimir Medeyko, the
director of Wikimedia.RU. This is a closed project, with invitations
given only by Mr. Medeyko. The project, available in Russian and
Ukrainian, has the stated purpose of describing Wikipedia and associated
activities. In practice, most of the articles are about Russian
Wikipedia participants and describe their activity in the project, with
the collection of diffs, from the point of view of the circle supporting
Mr. Medeyko. It has an excellent potential for outing (though outing is
formally prohibited there) and is most likely illegal according to
Russian laws.
Vladimir Medeyko has a highly ambiguous reputation in Russian
Wikipedia, having his bureacrat flag removed by the community decision,
being strongly admonished on several occasions by Arbitration Committee,
and once being elected to serve on the Arbcom. Recently, ha has almost
zero activity in Russian Wikipedia itself, but is extremely active on
wikipedia-related closed communication channels. He has his established
circle of supporters. I should also note that I believe he was one of
the people who made my further participation in Russian Wikipedia
impossible (I voluntarily gave the mop in in May 2011), and he knows
this, therefore every criticism from my side he takes as harassment.
The event was apparently announced on Russian Wikipedia (which I am
currently not a part of), which immediately caused a polarization, with
strongly-worded supports and opposes,all by Russian speakers. I was
already called troll on the talk page of the proposal by someone I, to
the best of my knowledge, never intersected with on any WMF project.
I known that right now we have no official capabilities, but if the
application could be reviewed as soon as possible and shut down the
nomination, this could prevent some conflicts. I am obviously biased and
already left my opinion, so that I can not do it, but any help would be
appreciated.
Cheers
Yaroslav