gasped fanboyishly at Putin's alleged erudition, boneheadedly accepting the Russian leader's mixture of semi-masticated Wikipedia and outright falsehood — such as the bizarre (and ominous) suggestion that Poland was somehow responsible for her own partition and destruction in 1939 — as if Russia had had no part in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
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— Boris Johnson in theDaily Mail
Perhaps Johnson was irritated by Putin's claim, made two or three times, that Johnson had stopped truce negotiations in Istanbul early in the war. Otherwise, Johnson sticks to his main point, that Carlson showed "bum-sucking servility to a tyrant."
A major share of Azercell is believed to be owned by the rulingAliyev family, according to a2015 report fromOCCRP. Ilham Aliyev, the president of the oil-rich former Soviet republic, is widely considered to bea dictator.
I don't claim that the Azerbaijani editors are effectively acting as paid editors for a dictator. What else are they supposed to do, if they want to contribute to Wikipedia in this field? But it does look like a clumsy and potentially problematic arrangement.
In the past, the neutrality of the Kazakh Wikipediawas disputed due to its suspected ties to the national government; a controversy thatnotably involved (albeit indirectly) none other than Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Wales.
Wikimedians are key players in ongoing Yoruba orthography standardization reform effort
Members of theYoruba Wikimedians User Group appear to be taking an active role in reforming the standardization of theYoruba language, a language which is spoken by over 40 million people in West Africa. According to apost published on the Wikimedia Foundation'sDiff blog, this effort comes as a collaboration between the user group and the International Centre for Yoruba Arts and Culture. The partnership has been ongoing fora couple of years, though the effort seems to have become increasingly organized and concrete in recent times.
Nigeria'sThe Nationreports that a group met at the University of Ibadan on January 12 in order to discuss this topic, describing the gathering as "a pivotal inaugural meeting". Nigeria'sThe Guardianreported in mid-January that a joint committee that seeks to "examine and harmonize the current orthography" of Yoruba had been formed and was partnering with Wikimedia. According toThe Guardian, members of the committee contain representatives from a number of Nigerian and Yoruba civil society groups. The joint committee hasscheduled a conference for the weekend of February 20, 2024, to continue the group's orthography standards reform efforts.
According to a2013 paper published theJournal of Arts and Humanities, a standardization of Yoruba orthography was first published in 1875. The 1875 orthography remained the standard system for writing Yoruba for nearly 100 years, though reform efforts that began in the 1960s culminated in a committee of Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Education writing and approving of new standards for the language by June 1974. The 1974 orthography has remained the language's official standard through the present day. –R
In brief
Which is the most fashionable U.K. university?
People are interested in Oxford and Cambridge:The Tab, a British publication targeted at college students,published a list of the top 10 U.K. universities by Wikipedia page views during 2023. Oxford took first place with 1,353,397 views and Cambridge second with 995,733. The top Scottish university by page views,St. Andrews University, took fifth place with 349,988 views. No universities from Wales or Northern Ireland made the cut. (See also:WikiProject Higher education's popular pages list)
Wikimedia CEO to speak at university: According to arelease from theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander will give a lecture at the university on the topic of "the future of the world's largest crowdsourced encyclopedia in an era of artificial intelligence". Iskander will speak at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time on Thursday, February 22, in the university'sCowell Hay Barn. The lecture is free and open to members of the public, though organizers encourage prospective attendees toregister ahead of time.
How should we use Wikipedia?: Euronews Bulgariaspeaks with Sofia University professor Iglika Ivanova, who provides some guidance on how to use Wikipedia as an informed citizen.
Honey, how you grew!: Back in January, Andrea Daniele Signorellireflected forla Repubblica on the 23rd anniversary of Wikipedia(in Italian), stating that "in a [digital] world that is usually based on the so-calledsurveillance capitalism, Wikipedia represents anunicum for its relevance, longevity and size". Fun fact: Signorelli also interviewedGianluca Moro, an IT consultant for theUniversity of Padua, who reportedlycreated the first article on theItalian Wikipedia, aboutcommunication.
Wikipedia's coverage of the Arab Spring causes uproar in Ghanaian treason trial: In Ghana,several individuals were recently tried for the capital crime of high treason, with the prosecution alleging that the defendants had plotted to engage in a coup d'etat in 2021. Two of those charged were acquitted, whilesix individuals were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Part of the trial had focused on references to theArab Spring that had been made by a high-ranking police official. During the trial, the Attorney General of Ghana attempted to rely on a definition ofArab Spring that had been taken from its Wikipedia article. The defendant, who had publicly argued that Wikipedia was not credible as a reference source in this context, provided an alternative definition in his defense. The judge, in issuing the final ruling in the case,agreed with the defendant.
Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit our next edition in theNewsroom or leave a tip on thesuggestions page.
Maybe, but "mixture of semi-masticated Wikipedia and outright falsehood" doesn't imply that the Wikipedia part agrees with Putin's disinformation splurt, but just that articles were adapted or otherwise employed to buttress the propaganda?Sandizer (talk)22:24, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone remotely familiar with his premiership (or, more importantly, his "journalism" before that) would know better than to assume that BoJo even cared to begin to know what he was talking about.Daniel Case (talk)05:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To me at least, he seems to be simply referencing the nature of Wikipedia as a place to get large amounts of information on something; Putin was mingling his propaganda with an overly detailed, rather irrelevant, history lesson.Kymothoë (talk)— Precedingundated comment added02:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Conservapedia is laced with falsehoods"... sky is blue, Pope is Catholic, etc. Kinda shocked that an NPR station is bothering to write about Andy Schlafly's blog in 2024. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs)20:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Everything in history is going to be a "myth" to someone, how is the Novgorod narrative any different to something like the American Revolution for the US, 1812 and Confederation for Canada, or Bosworth Field for England?Orchastrattor (talk)00:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Myth" is not the same as "history", even if historical facts occasionally make their way into the myth. What Putin said is not the same as the American myths about Washington chopping down a cherry tree, or even about Washington being a great general. The Rus - who were Vikings trading with Constantinople - were certainly in Novgorod and Kiev about the time mentioned (900 CE), but that doesn't mean that the "Kievan Rus" were the founders of the Russian state, or that they even have more than a slight relation to theDuchy of Muscovy (e.g. Ivan the Terrible) or Peter the Great's creation of theRussian Empire. That would be about the equivalent as saying the Pilgrims founded America. There were long stretches of time when Ukraine had nothing to do with Moscow or St. Petersburg. And there were many times when the Muscovites were slaughtering or starving the Ukrainians rather than governing them. Using that history to claim, as Putin was doing, that Ukrainians have always been the little brothers of Russia, is about as historical as it would be to claim that Canadians are the little brothers of Americans. Except Putin is using his myth to slaughteer Ukrainians once more, while saying that they've always been a part of Russia.Smallbones(smalltalk)04:58, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
