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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-01-31/News and notes

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News and notes

Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail

Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail

Osama Khalid (left) together with fellow Wikipedian Ziyad Alsufyani: both of of them are currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia (see previous Signpost coverage).

As reported by Palestinian Wikimedian Farah Jack Mustaklem, on 19 January 2024 Osama Khalid, a Saudi pediatrician, blogger and Wikipedia volunteer, turned 30 years old while still being detained in al-Ha'ir Prison, together with fellow doctor and Wikipedian Ziyad Alsufyani.

As detailed in previous Signpost coverage, Osama and Ziyad had both been arrested in July 2020 and sentenced, respectively, to 5 and 8 years in prison, with the former’s sentence having been increased to 32 years on appeal in September 2022; however, reports about their incarceration first went public in January 2023. The two, whose arrest and detention are considered to be connected to the Saudi government’s recent crackdown on online dissent, had both served as administrators on the Arabic Wikipedia for several years, while being deeply involved within the Wiki Project Med Foundation and contributing to several articles about Saudi human rights activists, such as Loujain al-Hathloul.

Nine different civil rights organizations, including Access Now and Digital Citizenship, have co-signed an open letter dated 19 January 2024 asking for the immediate release of Osama, Ziyad and all of the other activists currently detained in Saudi Arabian prisons. – O and AK

Child Rights Impact Assessment

Title page of WMF Child Rights Impact Assessment Report 2023 (pdf)
Article One – WMF Child Rights Impact Assessment Report 2023 (English)

The Wikimedia Foundation has announced the publication of a Child Rights Impact Assessment, described as an independent report commissioned from consultancy Article One to "understand the impacts, risks, and opportunities posed to children who access and participate in Wikimedia projects":

While the Wikimedia Foundation’s commitments to privacy and data minimization make it impossible to know just how many young readers and editors there are on Wikimedia projects, an untold number of people less than 18 years of age seek out verifiable, encyclopedic information on Wikipedia. [...] Some of them progress from readers to editors as they start to contribute their own knowledge to these pages. Protecting child safety, both of readers and editors, is a top priority not only for the Foundation, but also for Wikimedia community groups and affiliates around the globe. [...]

This Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) is the latest initiative that we have undertaken in order to meet our commitment to protect and uphold the human rights of all those who interact with Wikimedia projects. In 2020, the Foundation carried out an organization-wide Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA), with a report and update on progress published in 2022. A key recommendation of that assessment was to conduct a targeted CRIA, which could help us to better understand the benefits to and risks to children participating in Wikimedia projects.

The Foundation—in partnership with Article One, a specialized strategy and management consultancy with expertise in human rights, responsible innovation, and sustainability—started work on the CRIA in late 2021, and completed it in March 2023. The publication of this report (redacted to protect security and privacy of volunteers, readers, and those who were interviewed for the report) represents both a continuation of the Foundation’s commitments to human rights, and an important opportunity to revitalize conversations across the Wikimedia movement around how to best protect children on Wikimedia projects.

AK

Chinese Wikipedia logo

Chinese Wikipedia

An article (Google translation) in the German Wikipedia's Kurier notes that the Chinese Wikipedia (zh:WP) has decided

  • to introduce an ArbCom;
  • to lower the RfA approval threshold from the previous 80% to about 70–75%;
  • to trial probationary adminship for candidates getting at least 50% approval.

The Chinese Wikipedia has apparently been in administrative crisis ever since the 2021 WMF desysops (see previous coverage in the 26 September 2021 Signpost issue: 1, 2, 3). The above measures have been designed to mitigate the situation. – AK

Brief notes

The Deoband Community Wikimedia ran a "Heritage Lens" project last year. The above picture is from the project's second iteration in December 2023, focused on South Kashmir, a region in the Kashmir Valley.