Open letter concerning the recent developments on Wikipedia in French

An open letter has been published on 09/16/2022 by several prominent members of the Wikimedian community. Its focus is on Wikipedia in French and the community’s response to various developments of the project Les sans PagEs. With this letter, we, editors of Wikipedia in French, would like to clear out some misunderstandings and shed light on the context of the various ongoing debates.

Les sans PagEs is a project that started in 2016 with the purpose of creating more articles on notable women as articles on feminisms and gender issues. The project claims to be committed to respecting Wikipedia’s pillars. These aims are endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the community, who rejoices that many articles – meeting Wikipedia in French’s requirements – have since then been created  on women’s biographies, in part through this project.

However, since around 2020, prominent members of the project Les sans PagEs have tried to compel the community to adopt their opinion on how to handle the community debates and the articles related to gender issues, and those related to transidentity in particular. It quickly became clear that these members endorse standpoint epistemology and therefore view neutrality as being achieved only if the lived experiences of different underprivileged minorities is given a voice and – to some extent – a greater proportional weight than that of the standpoints of members deemed to be in a position of privilege. The theoretical origin of this specific epistemology and its very name are unknown to most members of the French-speaking Wikipedia. What has not gone unnoticed, however, is how much this conception of neutrality is in direct opposition to Wikipedia’s fundamental principle that states that "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

So far, these members of the project Les sans PagEs have had limited success in their endeavours to enforce their viewpoints on the community. It has however led to heated debates on what neutrality actually means and how to implement it – heated debates which are still ongoing. In those discussions, some arguments in defense of Les sans PagEs seem to conflate harassment and dissent. Meanwhile, early August the community discovered that on the official Discord server of the project, some talks were being held that spoke in very derogatory terms, slurs even at times, of editors who happen to often disagree with some members of the Les sans PagEs project.

It is in this already tense context that the community was informed that the association Les sans PagEs is now employing its former president. It came as surprise and many wondered what was the job description, where the money to finance it would come  from and whether or not the Wikimedia Foundation, support of Les sans PagEs still stands behind Wikipedia’s second pillar of neutrality of viewpoint. On this occasion, many users learned that the Wikimedia France heavily subsidizes the association Les sans PagEs (up to €30,000 a year), a fact that many weren’t aware of. This too has led to considerable discussions, that are still ongoing. This is not very surprising, as it is the first time that an internal project of the French-speaking Wikimedia gives rise to a paid position. The fact that many editors didn’t know that Les sans PagEs is not only a project but also an independent association led to further confusion.

Wikipedia in French has dedicated considerable time and effort in welcoming new users. Contrary to larger Wikipedia projects, it is in fact possible to reference and write an article in French without any knowledge of the wikicode. Since 2020, the project «Aide et accueil» centralises most of these welcoming efforts. New users get a welcoming message with the most useful links for beginners, can make use of a mentoring system, have their articles proofread by more advanced users, their questions answered in a beginners’ forum, etc. It is our concern that Wikipedia in French being constantly depicted as being misogynist or unwelcoming of sexual minorities could undermine these efforts. Wikipedia in French aims at being inclusive of everyone, whatever their level of academic achievement, knowledge of coding, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or ethnic background. Hateful statements towards other editors, harassment, insults, defamation, including towards minorities, are sanctioned. This inclusivity, however, does not imply any renunciation of its second founding pillar, neutrality, established by relying on reliable sources and representing all significant viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in the published, reliable sources.

We love Wikipedia and stand resolute in our undertaking of creating a free, universal encyclopedia, that anyone can edit.

Signed,

1. Braveheidi, editor on the French-language Wikipedia
2. Chaps the idol, contributor and sysop on the French-language Wikipedia
3. Gdgourou, contributor and sysop on the French-language Wikipedia
4. Pic-Sou, contributor on the French-language Wikipedia