Jump to content

Requests for comment/Massive use of fringe sources and quote mining in articles on Islam in Wikiquote

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

The following request for comments is closed. A Meta RFC is not the proper place to discuss this, as users have pointed out below. And the project in question was never notified. Closing as invalid and stale. --MF-W 08:47, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Hello, I don't know how to report this, I hope that this is the correct place. Biased content with fringe sources are being added systematically in Wikiquote by different accounts related to a same user, now under the name of დამოკიდებულება (User:დამოკიდებულება), I raised the issue in 2018, but nobody cared. There is barely discussion by uninvolved third parties or admins in discussions. As was to expected some editors didn't take it well and started a war all over WQ that take years, they used very disruptive methods to take action against the perceived bias. This action affected me recently when an editor tried to delete my content that I was adding to balance that very same POV they were against. Obviously the approach that the end justify the actions, using disruptive methods, is wrong and these editor should knew better. I didn't checked the sources added by დამოკიდებულება until very recently, many failed to be verified, they were synthesis or not reliable.

The most recent discussion before I started to take a more involved action was when I deleted a quote on Islam and women. The editor responded with a link to Faith Freedom International. I responded with "That is not a reliable source and cites a Bible verse, which has nothing to do with the Quran. I think that this and all the similar pages on Islam need to be checked and cleaned due POV". The discussion continued in the article about Islam and War, here on Thomas Hughes's Dictionary of Islam, I tried to find that quotes with no success. I asked to said editor "I can't found this quotes in the source, please specify the pages so it can be verified." The response was a personal attack calling that my action "borders on vandalism" and then gave me a series of links to "Answering Islam" which is not a reliable source. I already had left a link to the Thomas Hughes's Dictionary of Islam so I don't know what that has to do with this. The response to this was the same, so I responded with "Accusing people of vandalism is not WQ:CIVIL. Quotes that can't be verified fail WQ:VERF." The response was accusations of bad faith on along with that "The page numbers were even noted together with the source." And started to talk about what admins were doing in other parts of WQ: "If you look at other quotes at other pages on wikiquote, then you see that the quotes you deleted are in accordance with the standards at wikiquote. See as examples these quotes added by WQ admins" So I checked first two Hughes' quotes that stated some numbers, so I looked in the link that I left, I didn't found that content there. So I responded with "WQ:VERF says otherwise. It must be demonstrable that the person cited as the author of the quote is indeed the author; or at least that some independent and unbiased source attributes the quote to that author. The burden to demostrate that is on you." Then the editor started to deflect. All discussion with this editor is the same and other editors simply don't comment. There can't be consensus if people detached of the issue don't comment. Later the editor continued with the accusations of vandalism in the talk page "This seems like whitewashing of notable topics and quotes. User:DanielTom has said in a similar case that attempts to make Wikiquote Sharia-compatible are a form of vandalism." I don't have idea what that means but that doesn't sound civil nor NPOV. So when I started with cleaning up all the mess the editor started forum shopping and make accusations of bad faith all over WQ.

I just ignored further discussions all together because all that incivility. I know that the editor spammed all the talk pages but I don't really know what exactly wrote there after that point and I don't really care after all that incivility. What I found is that the main sources that the editor is trying to pass as reliable are blogs[1][2][3] and fringe authors of the "Counter-Jihad"[4][5] or affiliated to the Hindutva movement,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] like Koenraad Elst, [16][17][18][19][20][21][22], and content that when you search it have their origin on those sites.[23][24] These are just random examples that I took from my edit history and this editor have been spamming these content. So later, this editor started to revert my edits, and warring and attempts to game the system were made. Admins didn't comment anywhere and didn't take any action whatsoever, they never take action when this kind of problem surge. So this editor decided to make a formal accusation of vandalism in which User:Koavf intervened.

The thing started to get heated when I opened two VfDs that I feel that didn't meet WQ policies: Harsh Narain and [25], the first response was forum shopping and accusations of bad faith. [26]. Malik is a living person, that quotes taken out of context are hoax vandalism and a synthesis. After that admin UDScott decided to engage me in my talk page and in the VdF. In the VfD the admins questioned my intentions on why I opened it, in my talk page we discussed a similar issue but not directly related on notability on the page about Racism. Have in mind that at the same time დამოკიდებულება was forum shopping all over WQ and doing personal attacks. Nobody care about that. I removed that reply due that it was in bad faith and again asked the admin to not write in my talk page, the admin then threatened me with a ban for "incivility", the conversation continued in the noticeboard. This is just one example of what is being in WQ, as I said that it's not the only issue that I had with this admin and with other similar problems on sourcing and neutrality. Policies applies only in selective cases, people war all the time. The only one that I saw that tried to stop warring in a all the parties involved during a discussion was User:Koavf, at least as far as I know. Going back to to the quote mining and POV synthesis, I clean up Malik's article after I access the source. I made a report with my findings here. As you can see the response of დამოკიდებულებ was more of the same. I I wish I could put everything here, but this post was already too long and I needed to trimmed, the untrimmed version can be found here. Rupert loup (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also I forgot to mention that to complete the narrative Jihadist propaganda is added from time to time by said editor. Rupert loup (talk) 02:06, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment:
First of all I came here from Rupert loup's post on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam. Since I did not know any other experienced user I have sought help of User:Rupert loup couple of times. He too encouraged me on Wikiquote couple of times with thanks messages for working on Wikiquotes. I found him sort of neutral. He retained some of my additions to Wikiquote he deleted some of my additions to Wikiquote. Since I do not know Wikiquote policies in detail usually I took his word. So up til now it's been sort of cordial enough. So this post came to me sort of surprise.
So with due respect for User:Rupert loup, since I do not know all the rules at Wikiquote and Here at meta too; let me put few of my observations , with hope User:Rupert loup will take it positively.
First of all his notification only at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam. will not be neutral enough if he has given notification there then it would be fair that notification is given at general village pump at Wikipedia for sake of neutrality.
2) Notifications should have gone on talk pages of users he is complaining about. They too need to get fair chance of representing their side whether be it right or wrong .
3) While I did not question his deletions much, but I observed that recently those were becoming bit single minded and he less and less discussing deletions on Wikiquote talk pages. (I was also recently surprised with his decision of merging of one of my article single handed, though I did not question him since unaware of wikiquote policies.) If not these users to some other users he would have got into edit wars with.
4) With due respect for User:Rupert loup his edit war at article Fatwa @ Wikiquote seems was avoidable without going in to merits of edits of other editors edits and he could have avoided block on himself. His block seems to have been reviewed by another admin too.
Usually people go to Wikiquote when they are censored on Wikipedia, so always their is an expectation of some liberty at Wikiquote. While I am not aware of Wikiquote rules why Quotability should not get precedence and why encyclopediac notabilty is needed is not clear enough to me.
With due respect to User:Rupert loup he deleted one of quote of an African Author added by me terming that author as of marginal notability. What is marginal notabilty ? I found comment to be subjective leading to systemic bias against authors of African descent.
I hope User:Rupert loup will be able to take my reservations in stride positively and continue with his constructive support.
Thanks and regards Bookku (talk) 19:00, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]


@Rupert loup: Have you notified the project, as is required per Requests for comment/Policy? --Rschen7754 00:15, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Liuxinyu970226: This situation is not happening at the Georgian Wikiquote but at the English Wikiquote. It was reported before by User:Sitush and other users [27] [28] and even more recently at Wikipedia village pump (policy) [29]. The problem is not only limited to articles on Islam but also on every article related to India.

  • Let me introduce myself. I am an experienced editor on the English Wikipedia with 54,000 edits over the last 14 years. I have been thinking of getting more involved with Wikiquote but have a lot to learn, so please let me know when I run into a situation where things are done differently compared to Wikipedia.
Looking at this thread: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_162#Using_Wikiquote_as_a_back_door_for_POV_pushing ] I thought that this had been dealt with, both on Wikipedia and on Wikiquote.
It seems to me that meta is the wrong place to start. This should be discussed at [ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Administrators%27_noticeboard ] on the Wikiquote side and at [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents ] on the Wikipedia side. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]