Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-06-08/Opinion

The Signpost strives to publish a variety of opinion pieces, essays and letters representing a diversity of perspectives; the following letter is a response to a paper written by Tamzin, a Wikipedia editor. On one hand, it concerns specific claims made in an academic paper; on the other hand, it relates strongly to the public interest and the mission of Wikimedia projects, which the Signpost exists to foment.

While we as Wikipedia editors accept that our work is mostly anonymous, and while we lack the prestige and imprimatur of academic institutions, in the name of our project's stability and continued reliability, it is important to stand up for ourselves from time to time. — J

Tamzin Hadasa Kelly (they/xe/any; Mx.)
wikimediantamz.in
3 June 2024

Dr. Janne Lahti et al., editors
Settler Colonial Studies

To the editors:

I write in response to "Wikipedia's Indian problem: settler colonial erasure of native American knowledge and history on the world's largest encyclopedia", an article by Dr. Kyle Keeler published on 24 May 2024. I believe that this article contains multiple factual errors, as well as an undisclosed conflict of interest.

But before we get to that, I'd like to tell a story.

In February of 2023, a user named Insitemobile came to Wikipedia's administrators' noticeboard for incidents, to report an Indigenous editor named Yuchitown for reverting his edits. His report, titled "Spam, Vandalism and Bullying By Native Tribes", contained the claim that Yuchitown had a conflict of interest regarding the Saponi and Sappony because the Yuchi historically fought the Saponi.^[1] Wikipedians broadly recognize that attempting to disqualify an editor's opinions on the basis of inherent or quasi-inherent attributes (race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) is hateful conduct, and administrators routinely block^[2] editors who make such claims. Yet, while administrators did call out Insitemobile as disruptive, none called out the racism in his comments. He was blocked for a week, which became a month when he called his opponents "wikinazis". He then switched to editing without an account, writing to Yuchitown, "I have some advice, be careful online with oppressing other groups of people and especially be careful what IT people you offend and call an OP because this site and country is not safe. people can drive around and use any ip and stalk etc". A second administrator blocked the IP subnet.^[3] But the Insitemobile account remained under a merely temporary block. Ten hours later, I noticed this and converted his block to indefinite. I added, "[In my opinion], where threats are involved, that's 'indefinite as in infinite'."

I do not mention this anecdote to claim credit for some act of heroism. I did what any administrator should have done; it took me only a few minutes. I mention it for a few reasons:

Firstly, it was a good introduction to the challenges of systemic racism that editors face in the Indigenous topic area. I do not believe that either of the two administrators who under-reacted harbor any racism against Indigenous people. Assuming good faith is a core principle on Wikipedia, and I assume that the first administrator simply overlooked the racist argument of disqualifying based on tribe membership (which arose several paragraphs into a long post) and that the second didn't realize that the first had only blocked temporarily. But such oversights are often good indicators of where systemic biases lie. If an editor had tried to disqualify someone's views because they were a woman or Black or gay or Muslim, it would not have taken 30 hours and an intervening threat of violence for someone to block the account indefinitely.

Secondly, this incident is how I got to know CorbieVreccan and Indigenous girl. I exchanged emails with both of them about their experiences in the topic area and their sense of administrators not stepping in to keep Indigenous editors safe. I was left with very favorable impressions of both of them. That remains the case with Indigenous girl.

Thirdly, this provides a good illustration of what Wikipedia administrators do and don't do. They^[4] do determine whether editors are acting in compliance with our policies and guidelines, especially as pertains to user conduct. They do not decide who is right or wrong in a dispute. I made, absolutely, the right call in blocking Insitemobile, but I couldn't tell you who is right in the underlying dispute as to how Wikipedia should characterize the recognition of the Sappony. I am not a subject-matter expert. Even if I did have a personal opinion on the matter, it would not have influenced my decision. My action was based on the racism and death threats, no more, no less. This distinction is important to keep in mind as one considers the narrative that Dr. Keeler has presented.

I do not wish to delegitimize the core message of Dr. Keeler's piece. Members of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America (IPNA) have often been mistreated by Wikipedians who are racist, clueless, or somewhere in between. There was great potential in this article to uncover the nuances of how the Wikipedia community has interacted with CorbieVreccan, Indigenous girl, and other members of IPNA. Dr. Keeler, however, squandered that opportunity in two ways: First, he failed to disclose his personal involvement in the matters his article discusses and his past conflict with me. In addition to the ethical implications of these omissions, Dr. Keeler's lack of necessary distance led him to his second critical mistake: not interviewing all of the people he wrote about. By presenting a narrative based only on his own recollection of events and those of, apparently, those with similar perspectives, he perpetrated many easily avoided errors and misrepresentations. This is a shame: What could have been a compelling investigation into systemic racism on Wikipedia instead becomes, in essence, one ex-Wikipedian's grudge piece against people he feels wronged him and his allies, facts be damned.