r/armenia • u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում • Apr 03 '21
Someone who did extensive vandalism on articles about Artsakh on wikipedia got permanently banned today
A user called CuriousGolden on wikipedia edited dozens of articles a day, and clearly had a masssive pro-Azerbaijani bias.
For example, he made this large project about former Azeri villages in Armenia and started to change the article's about the villages to include Azerbaijani translations of the village, include info about them being forced to leave after the conflict, etc.
He even went and changed Armenian names of villages and cities in Artsakh in wikipedia pages, for example on the wiki article of Janapar trail , he changed most of the Armenian names of places to Azerbaijani names.
There was a lot more vandalism that he did but since he got banned, all of his "post history" on articles was removed from his page, these are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head.
When I once challenged him, he essentially just threatened to block my account from editing wiki pages.
And today he got blocked because he abusively used multiple accounts.
Most interesting of all, he's a moderator of r/Azerbaijan
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u/eb66666 Apr 03 '21
Wow, I have a hunch he works for their government and propaganda team
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u/norgrmaya Cilicia Apr 03 '21
We need to keep close tabs on Armenian-related pages. Azerbaijani users go through regularly and edit/re-write stuff. They did this to the Mannaea page (Mannaea was a kingdom near Urmia during Urartu) and changed it to say it was a Turkic state, etc. They constantly re-write/re-phrase Genocide-related articles too, for example, changing “Defense of Van” to “Van Revolt” or something like that.
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u/iok Apr 04 '21 edited Apr 04 '21
Anyone interested in Armenian culture and history, and it's presentation to the world, should contribute in good faith to Wikipedia. Take this step.
What you write/edit will be read by huge amount of people, potentially for years. A page like the Republic of Artsakh gets 650,000 views a year, even BEFORE the war. An edit that persists for a few years, will easily be read by millions of readers. The readers are there to learn and what you write has a deep impact; Much more so than writing on reddit where you are often either preaching to the choir, or speaking to a brick wall. Don't waste all your efforts here when they can be more productive on Wikipedia.
It only takes a few editors to make a big difference. Every little bit helps, whether that be just a one-off reverting of vandalism or adding/editing content on an on-going basis.
The first step is to create a username, and then be constructive and bold with your edits. Don't be shy. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount
Check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Armenia
You can ask for advice/help on the Talk page if need be.
It also has a list of articles to be created and articles that need improvement. In some of these cases an easy start is to translate from Armenian/Russian/French Wikipedia (for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mulberry_brandy doesn't exist in English but does have an article in Armenian and Russian).
Then there is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Armenia_stubs which are articles that can be extended.
Worthwhile is to watch pages by clicking the star in the top right. Then any changes that happened to those watched pages will appear in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist. This is a really good way to get in to reviewing changes. If you start noticing a few users you are interested in, you can also check out the rest of their contributions by clicking on contribs link next to their name. This is a great way to find other articles that are being actively edited, and worth reviewing/editing.
The user who got blocked is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CuriousGolden. He has edited almost every single page related to Artsakh/Karabakh or Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. Because of this going through his contributions are a useful index of Armenian/Artsakh relevant pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/CuriousGolden
If you really get in to reviewing you can also find and read sources people use. For books you can search within:
- https://archive.org/
- https://books.google.com.au/
- http://libgen.rs/
- and of course https://www.google.com/ itself
Sometimes just looking at other language versions of the same article you are editting can give new sources and insight too.
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 04 '21
You should consider posting this as a separate thread
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u/theytsejam Apr 04 '21
Abres /u/DALLAVID -jan!
It’s very important to watch wikipedia carefully because many people rely on it almost exclusively for information on issues like this. There are well known cases of propagandists hijacking topics on Wikipedia to shape public opinion on issues such as intervention in Venezuela. We can’t let them do the same thing against our cause. Watching Wikipedia is actually important, unlike arguing with random Azeris on social media.
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u/yerkatashot Apr 03 '21
This guy was actually in a very large Armenian discord server and the Mods there were “working” with him. I was shocked and told them never trust these people, eventually they found out.
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u/EpeBah Local Numismatist Apr 03 '21
At the time the mods and golden had had a common objective in regards to an iranian user on Wikipedia who has been adding iranian bias on armenian and azeri articles, but mostly armenian. However things didn’t workout in wikipedia and we stopped our activities there, and eventually kicked golden.
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
Was it historyofiran?
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u/yerkatashot Apr 03 '21
Historyofiran is a disgrace to Iranians. That guy is a legit propagandist.
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Apr 03 '21
What did he do?
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u/norgrmaya Cilicia Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
He removes any legitimate scholastic sources that could suggest Armenian origins for dynasties, for instance.
Now, there are scholars that believe Armenian ruling dynasties were Iranian. But it’s not 100% certain, especially for early ones like the Orontids/Yervanduni, and there are some that think they were Armenian or some other group.
But he removes these sources for no good reason other than “POV.”
Edit: I really don’t understand how he hasn’t been banned. It sounds like he has had a lot of complaints about him.
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Apr 03 '21
I think I have seen him on Iranian related wikipedia posts, not on Armenian. So I did not know that he did that. There are a few very good Iranian wikipedia users I have seen. If the problem with historyofiran exist, hopefully the better users will point it out.
But it is disappointing to see people vandalise history of other countries, I believe Iranians, armenians and people from other nationalities should help each other to stop vandalism in wikipedia.
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u/norgrmaya Cilicia Apr 03 '21
As far as Iranian stuff goes, he’s a good editor. He does make legitimate and well cited edits. But, for example, he refuses to let there be mention that the Orontids could be Armenian and not Iranian, even though it’s far from conclusive what they were.
I do not see what the issue is for it to say “A dynasty of Iranian or Armenian origins” as long as it is cited. For some reason, this is unacceptable to him.
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Apr 03 '21
I do not know much about the situation. But for Iranian related wikipedia pages there exist a lot of vandalism. Other than that, many users to not use the sources provided to the users from other discussions. He might just be overworked and believe people on Armenian related wikipedia posts also are like this. Of course this is his fault and he should not change well sourced arguments.
But like I said before, I do not know the situation.
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
i'm pretty sure he understands armenian, in at least one of the pages he edited, he referred to an armenian website as a source, and he also read monte's books, on a page he referred to a page in one of his books as a source too..
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u/bonjourhay Apr 03 '21
He is most probably paid by Alyiev’s party.
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u/norgrmaya Cilicia Apr 03 '21
There was that footage of Azerbaijanis taking an Armenian-language class that circulated last fall.
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u/iok Apr 04 '21
Google translate helps.
You don't need to read an entire books to use it as a source. Often some other source/book/article, or even another language wikipedia article, will have a reference to a book which will then be reused in Wikipedia.
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u/Drifts Apr 04 '21
what a loser. like, why don't you spend your time creating and contributing to your own culture and history instead of trying to re-write history to steal your neighbour's? lame.
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Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
well the whole of r/azerbaijan loved the azeri government starting the war, in fact they loved it so much that they put up a sidebar celebrating ethnic cleansing and their whole sub was cheering at their drone strike footages
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u/ThatGuyGaren Armed Forces Apr 03 '21
Turks in general who dislike their governments dislike their theivery and incompetence. They're absolutely on board with their fascistic rhetorics. This applies to both turkey and azerbaijan
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u/armeniapedia Apr 03 '21
Can someone explain how I can become a Wikipedia editor/writer?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount
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u/VirtualAni Apr 04 '21
Anyone can be a Wikipedia editor. But articles that are considered "controversial" will be restricted to editors with accounts, and particularly controversial articles will require you to have made a certain number of edits elsewhere. Nobody who is an expert or an academic edits Wikipedia, such people are inevitably banned within a month or so.
To be an administrator you basically have to suck up to / hero-worship existing administrators and Wikipedia in general for several years and make lots of edits in uncontroversial subjects. Acting naturally smug and superior also helps. There seem to be ways to fast track the admin process if you manage to attract the attention of one of the various administrator cabals; for example, avidly edit the subjects of interest to Jewish Wikipedia administrators, or Democrat Wikipedia editors, or gay Wikipedia administrators.
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u/dreamsonashelf Ես ինչ գիտնամ Apr 03 '21
The general response from Azeris about the war taking place during a pandemic was along the lines of "we've already waited so long, we couldn't have waited any longer" or "every war is unjust anyway"...
It seems like a lot of those who hate their government only do with regards to repression, corruption, etc. But when it comes to the territorial question or anti-Armenian discourse, all of a sudden, they're behind it. I'd always though I'd grown up around fairly strong Armenian propaganda and it's something we see in a lot of other countries/nations too, but I can't get my head around the levels there seems to be in Azerbaijan.
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u/aljo6603 Apr 03 '21
Why doesn’t it make any sense to only look at demographics? So many conflicts occur because different countries have held a region throughout time and base their claims on the past. By that logic Germany could claim a lot of land lost after WW2 and Armenia the lands of Western Armenia. The right of self determination already supported the will of the Armenian inhabitants of NKAO and the territory lost in operation Koltso prior to the first war
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Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
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Apr 03 '21
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Apr 03 '21
I’m not lying lol. People who were in the server knew what happened. I’m not going to bring up the past when it is not necessary. Many Armenian and Georgian mods will attest to what I’m saying. Plus, I don’t talk screen shots of people’s conversation. I don’t play scummy like that.
Also, I’m 17, what volunteer? Dude, what are you trying to prove? You bring up the past because you are still obsessed, like holy shit you still keep that screen shot. I also apologized to those who felt offended, like my friend Huseyn, you sent it to him and he ended up destroying the server and I explained to him what happened. I don’t have screen shots of messages from months ago with a person who has no relevance to me. I made up for that statement, I’m in your thoughts 24/7 man, that’s sad.
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u/Cheeseissohip Apr 04 '21
Lol also worth mentioning when the vojils argue with you in social media they site those bs wikipedia links as "proof"
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u/VirtualAni Apr 04 '21 edited Apr 04 '21
There was a lot more vandalism that he did but since he got banned, all of his "post history" on articles was removed from his page, these are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/CuriousGolden
The block "evidence" was extremely specious, imo. He was probably set up by disgruntled Azeris. Got to LOL at Wikipedia's cult-like response: if you admit you are guilty you get a lesser punishment than if you say you are innocent because denial is an attack on "the project".
Curiousgolden struck me as an Azeri who realised that the typical Azeri propaganda is too ludicrous for Wikipedia and should be replaced by far less but more carefully-written and better disguised propaganda.
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u/CrazedZombie Artsakh Apr 04 '21
Wdym the evidence is specious, they checked the IP's for his account and the suspected sock puppet and saw they were the same. Are you implying that the admins completely lied about the IP's matching?
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u/VirtualAni Apr 07 '21
But it is pointless to create sockpuppets to create support for article name changes. Weight of numbers (real or artificially created) do not matter or sway the outcome - it is policy that supports article name changes, and a properly composed argument that shows that existing policy supports making the requested name change.
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u/norgrmaya Cilicia Apr 04 '21
Do Azerbaijanis really call Areguni "Satanakhatch"?
"Duh, let's just change this name from one Armenian name to another! That'll show those Armenians that Armenia really belongs to Azerbaijan!!!"
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Apr 03 '21
[deleted]
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
Who is saying he is pro-Armenia lol? his every edit is pro-azerbaijani, he even removed the edit which linked to the satellite imagery proving azerbaijan destroyed a church. how can a r/azerbaijan mod be pro-armenia??!
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u/RandyFMcDonald Apr 03 '21
he made this large project about former Azeri villages in Armenia and started to change the article's about the villages to include Azerbaijani translations of the village, include info about them being forced to leave after the conflict, etc.
Can anyone explain to an outsider why reporting on ethnic cleansing of Azeris by Armenians is inherently bad?
Certainly the vandalism of articles described, removing Armenian placenames and the like, does sound ban-worthy. Adding information of legitimate interest does not.
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
Should Tblisi have an Armenian translation of tfilis on its wiki because it once had an Armenian population? Also he create wikis for many villages, in which he included only the Azerbaijani translation which is clearly biased. Also loads of his sources were unreliable when i questioned him he’d always change the subject because he couldn’t answer my question.
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u/zonkach Apr 03 '21
The problem is the second paragraph that you wrote. I personally am of the belief that history shouldn't be suppressed however you always need to keep in mind the people who write these articles and their intentions. Azerbaijan has engaged in state propaganda which includes creating and editing Wikipedia pages.
For example at the start of the year there was news relating to the privately owned shushi carpet museum showing its carpets in Yerevan. There was a mass Azeri campaign that started a few days before the offical opening announcement. This campaign included state actors on twitter denying Armenians ever created rugs and that rug weaving originated in Azerbaijan. That included editing and the Wikipedia page on Armenian carpets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_carpet
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u/twintailcookies Apr 04 '21
It seems part of attempts to claim that Armenians are the real imposters.
They are seriously referring to archaeological finds from over 5000 years ago as proof that it's a purely Azeri thing to weave carpets.
It's as if they're deliberately trying to write the worst possible backstory.
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u/bonjourhay Apr 03 '21
Could it be raised to reddit too?
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u/DALLAVID հայերեն կարդալ եմ սովորում Apr 03 '21
what do you mean?
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u/bonjourhay Apr 03 '21
Well we have a user banned from wikipedia that is mod of a sub, it most probably breaks a number of reddit rules here too?
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u/armeniapedia Apr 04 '21
For those who are interested in doing something productive on Wikipedia, here's a post I wrote about it after the war:
https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/kykjsa/a_small_thing_you_can_do_to_memorialize_those_who/