SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the doesn't-the-internet-route-around-censorship? dept.
It's time out for Wikipedia in Turkey:
If you try to open Wikipedia in Turkey right now, you'll turn up a swirling loading icon, then a message that the server timed out.
Turkey has blocked Wikipedia. If you're inside the country, you can only access the online encyclopedia through a virtual private network connection to a system outside the country.
Turkish officials reportedly asked the online encyclopedia to remove content by writers "supporting terror."
Wikipedia "has started acting as part of the circles who carry out a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena, rather than being cooperative in fight against terror," ministry officials said, according to Al Jazeera. It tried to show Turkey "at the same level and in cooperation with terror groups."
Other coverage: https://turkeyblocks.org/2017/04/29/wikipedia-blocked-turkey/
http://aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/turkey-wikipedia-blocked-for-disregarding-the-law/808072
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 02 2017, @01:41AM
Wikipedia summarily deletes articles permanently, whereas everything else (changes, every old version of a page, talk page discussions, etc.) is permanently archived. Right there, to me, is proof that the deletionists know they are up to no good -- they want to erase any evidence of their actions. Changes to articles can be debated by the community, but once a page is deleted, only admins know it ever existed.
That is false. So-called "deleted" articles are hidden from public view but are retained, and can be restored by an administrator. When an article is deleted, the action is recorded in the deletion log: who deleted it, when, and the reason. When someone attempts to view a deleted article, an error page is shown which advises the reader to view the deletion log, and links to an essay which explains the rules for deletion and restoration. For example, I tried to view the deleted article on Steve McKnight, the first result that came up when I used the "random page" link at Deletionpedia (a site which archives articles deleted from Wikipedia):
If the page has been deleted, check the deletion log [wikipedia.org], and see Why was the page I created deleted? [wikipedia.org].
For that article, there was a discussion, with comments from six Wikipedia accounts. , based on which the administrator decided to delete the article. That doesn't always happen: administrators can delete articles unilaterally.
http://deletionpedia.org/en/Steve_McKnight [deletionpedia.org]
http://deletionpedia.org/en/Special:Random [deletionpedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McKnight [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Steve_McKnight [wikipedia.org]
Anyone who isn't banned from Wikipedia can request that an article be deleted, comment about a request to delete an article, or ask that a deleted article be restored.
> I cannot understand the deletionist attitude to removing "non-notable" stuff. [...] the line for "notability" in Wikipedia is quite arbitrary and is generally biased toward articles on popular culture over other obscure topics.
The article I chose as an example was deleted for being non-notable. It's a biography of a living person ("BLP" in Wikipedia jargon), for which Wikipedia's rules are strictest. You can see at the Deletionpedia link that its only source was a Web page of an organisation led by the person who was the subject of the article. In the deletion discussion, two commenters deemed it an autobiography.
http://www.yaliberty.org/chapters/indian-river-community-college [yaliberty.org]
The notability requirement is about whether the statements in an article can be corroborated. Were Wikipedia a site where one can write whatever one pleases about oneself, other people, or various topics, and have those unverifiable statements preserved, its value would be diminished.