Talk:Detention of Mark Bernstein

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Requested move 12 March 2022[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Clear consensus to move (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 08:26, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Mark Bernstein (Wikimedian) → Detention of Mark Bernstein – The biography itself is a clear WP:BLP1E focused on one event—his arrest by Belarus. As a result, I don't think the article is notable if it focuses on the current article subject. WP:BIO1E notes that [t]he general rule is to cover the event, not the person. As such, I think that moving the article to focus on the event is the best course of action as an WP:ATD. — Mhawk10 (talk) 04:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per nom. There's only one ref [1] that covers him independently of his arrest. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that Mark Bernstein is at the time not relevant per se, but because of his detention. But I am even less sure that an article about his detention meets the requirements for Wikipedia, as opposed to Wikinews. (Of course all of this does not stop my concern for his fate). --.mau. ✉ 09:02, 12 March 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by .mau. (talk • contribs)
  • Support [t]he general rule is to cover the event, not the person.--Sunfyre (talk) 12:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment: What? He is active on Wikimedia Commons so that makes him a Wikimedian. --Trougnouf (talk) 16:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Very active? He has over 216,000 Wikipedia edits so seems defining. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:29, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Sdkb. HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk) 03:51, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • No need to. If you study closely his Russian Wiki biography over the years, you will assume that he is powerful enough to be self-notable. --ssr (talk) 18:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't know what he is powerful enough to be self-notable means. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:23, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • That means no need to rename the article. Which means that Mark is primarily notable for his outstanding contributions to Wikipedia, and as consequence he was imprisoned for that. His main value is his Wikipedia efforts, not the imprisonment. And the article should focus on this. There are many information on this in Russian language. --ssr (talk) 09:30, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • If reliable, independent Russian-language sources exist that significantly cover him outside of the context of his detention, would you please provide them? I am limited in my ability to search in Russian, but the sources I can peruse using a machine translation tool that are listed on the Russian Wikipedia page don’t appear to significantly cover him outside of this context. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:44, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • There are problems that Russian press badly covers Wikipedia in general, good sources are rare, but they exist. First, this set of publications with 7 stories covering Mark. Second, this interview with him which some may say unreliable but I can prove it's reliable. URL wikireality.ru/wiki/Pessimist2006 — this blacklisted link won't be recognized reliable here, but it does contain A LOT of information on "him outside of the context of his detention". This link may also help, I think there are more and I will post them when I find/remember. E. g. here are Deutsche Welle as of 2010 and of 2011. 2011 Inosmi post is here. A 2014 interview. --ssr (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • + Slate --ssr (talk) 14:28, 15 March 2022 (UTC) + Haaretz --ssr (talk) 09:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC) + LeMonde + ZDNet.fr --ssr (talk) 07:37, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            • It's very bad that you are all ignoring me and do not write about how great Wikipedian Mark is. While we wait updates, it would be the best practice to describe his past achievements which are clearly present. But you seem to concentrate on warfare while Wikipedia must be against war. Wikipedia must concentrate on wikipedism, just like Mark. --ssr (talk) 08:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per those above. The event is notable but the man is not separately notable. (Off-topic, but solidarity to our Belarusian/Russian friends resisting Putin! If there is any way of showing support to them, please feel free to ping me to it.) — Bilorv (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as per nomination P1221 (talk) 08:43, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • No need to. Mark Bernstein is (and will be) more than someone in detention. Vysotsky (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If we rename, the article will lose all of its interwiki links since every other Wikipedia made an article about the dude, not the detention. --Deansfa (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is my understanding that different language Wikipedias may have different notability guidelines and BLP policies from the English Wikipedia. Do you believe that this article does not fall under our BLP1E standard? — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom, clear WP:BLP1E. Retswerb (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as premature, and I suggest we should wait for editors of the Russian wikipedia to make a call. One should not race to apply a technical reading like this with a subject of breaking news, about whom more will be forthcoming.Nishidani (talk) 18:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

about whom more will be forthcoming seems like something that would come out of a crystal ball. If coverage does not exist about this living person that significantly and independently covers him in the context of multiple events, I don’t see a reason why coverage of him would suddenly appear outside of the context of his detention. BLP, which includes WP:BLP1E, is a policy for a good reason. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
the phrase you cite as crystal ball gazing (a) 'about whom more will be forthcoming,' is followed by (b) 'I don’t see a reason why coverage of him would suddenly appear outside of the context of his detention.' I.e. guesswork, which is crystal-ball gazing by another name. This happens when one thinks in terms of policy, and not in terms of logic. To repeat. The move proposed is premature because this is breaking news, in which the proper assumption must be that 'more will follow' (like the fact that he was born in Minsk on the 19th August 1965, is Byelorussian and not as we suggested 'based in Minsk' (presumably on the supposition he is Russian because he edits the RW), graduated from the Belarusian National Technical University etc etc. These are the sorts of things one sees in the Byelorussian and Russian material cited on those wikipedias, and that is why I suggested we give time to editors from that language area time to consider the kind of proposal made here. They know what is not reported so far in Western sources. Nishidani (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Based in Minsk" is because of sourcing in my original start version. I couldn't find any sources saying that Bernstein is Belarusian, although I presume that he is. Feel free to add non-English sources, keeping in mind WP:NONENG. Brief quotes can also be included in translation in the references, for convenience of people unfamiliar with the particular non-English language. Boud (talk) 02:30, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • support and later merge to some general article, kind of Political repressions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am pretty much sure there are plenty of coverage of this type, of kinda low individual importance, but notable en masse. (Some of them are covered in the individual articles, such as the shutdown of Echo of Moscow and Dozhd. "Russia shut down free press during Ukraine invasion", repressions during the 2022 anti-war protests in Russia#Repression, etc.) Loew Galitz (talk) 06:16, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as a start, since it's clearly WP:BLP1E, but I don't think this incident should even be a separate article so I support the calls to merge too. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - he is now one of the world's most famous wikipedia-users. Who is he? The guy who was arrested in that accessory-country during the invasion of Ukraine - for having written on the Wikipedia website.--The name of the incident is less well-known: "The arrest of a wikipedia-user in Byelo-Russia during the country's time of giving material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine". 89.8.146.21 (talk) 01:46, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - clear BLP1E, none of the opposes have properly addressed this. I understand that he was a very active editor, but this does not make him automatically notable. The vast majority of the sources on Russian Wikipedia also cover him in the context of the arrest, so I don't think there's anything we're missing over here. Yeeno (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as a BLP1E, being an active editor on ru.wiki does not make him notable in his own right, yet the event of being detained is the thing that's being well covered and passes WP:GNG. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:01, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I sent this to AFD he fails BLP1E as noted repeatedly above and this doesn't need a dedicated article it's one of many arrests of journalists in the region. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:58, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move to an article that wouldn't be a violation of both WP:GNG and WP:BLP1E. Cheers! Fakescientist8000 (did I do something wrong? let me know! | what i've been doing) 14:56, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have to ask[edit]

The article mentions his username. Per WP:OUTING, he has volunteered his own name on-wiki at some point, right? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:30, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find a diff in which the user mentioned his surname on the English Wikipedia at any point. The userpage of the username mentioned in the article, however, contains user's given name and contains an image of the user. I'm also not sure the extent to which WP:OUTING applies to article content rather than to talk pages, since WP:OUTING it seems to be a conduct policy rather than a content policy. The username also appears to be widely reported across multiple Israeli media sources from what I can find online. I think I am going to open an RfC on WP:VP to get more general clarity on this sort of thing—if it were simply one outlet, I'd remove it in a heartbeat, but I'm seeing quite a few reliable sources that make the tie. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you will get a general agreement that OUTING doesn't apply outside talkpages. Afaik there is no WP:RS loophole in WP:OUTING.
A plain reading of the policy is that the article/en-WP can't have any links that mentions both name/username, unless the user volunteered it on WP ( other WMF projects may count per note 1 in the policy). A possible solution may be a consensus among editors to ignore the policy in this particular case per WP:IAR. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:19, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Examine Russian links I've given above. There must be a number of publications that clearly state both username and name. --ssr (talk) 20:38, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't necessarily think that I'll get a consensus for that. I'm not even sure that I would want a consensus for that. But it would be nice to have absolute clarity for purposes of (a) suppression enforcement and (b) making sure that editors clearly know whether or not WP:OUTING supersedes WP:NOTCENSORED. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My experience is that the community tends to go with a literal strict reading of WP:OUTING, which I can accept since the policy is on the whole a very very good one. From one angle, following the rule strictly can also simplify things. I remember one time when I had a WSJ article confirming by interview Yep, that's the username I edited my husbands WP-article with, but the result was no on-WP admission = no content (and redactions of links). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:23, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I mean that I agree that the OUTING policy is written to be very blunt, but I think that it might be beneficial to the article if we don't oversight links that contain the individual's username but do contain good information about the article subject. WP:IAR is a thing but IARing something that is classified as per se harassment by the written word of policy is something I'd not particularly like to do. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
His user talk page Обсуждение участника:Pessimist2006 contains only given name. But in 2009, he gave an interview about his activity in Russian Wikipedia [2] (this source is used in Russian version of the article about Mark Bernstein as a confirmation of the fact that user name Pessimist2006 belongs to him). This interview contains his given name, family name and picture of the face. In this interview he mentioned the artice Цензура в СССР in which he had done links to about 250 sources. Only one user had done so many edits to this article by that time. I suppose, this information was enough for identification. I think somebody tracked his edits, identified him using aforementioned interview and reported secret police. K8M8S8 (talk) 20:08, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: I've opened up a related RfCdiscussion on the Village Pump policy page. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:14, 15 March 2022 (UTC) (updated: 02:39, 16 March 2022 (UTC))[reply]

archive link: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 172#Wikipedia usernames and article content. Boud (talk) 00:21, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

jewish?[edit]

@A.Savin: Source for Jewish? Asking since you added a specific category. ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mark states on his blog that he is a Jew. That source has just been deleted with the justification that his blog is a "weak source"
I think also he mentioned this himself onwiki, formerly on user page / babel (meanwhile seems to be deleted) or certain workpages related to his preferred topics; apart from that it's actually obvious from his name (both the surname Bernstein + the patronymic Izrailevich). Regards --A.Savin (talk) 19:30, 16 March 2022 (UTC)ic[reply]
The Izraelevich was introduced I believe by a hostile outing source presumably by people who think this is relevant to who he is. In that context antisemitic implications are probable. He has or had a blog post complaining of wiki editors who keep insisting on identifying editors as Jewish regardless of what those editors think. So we shouldn't mention this unless we have a quality RS where he discusses that and has no objection. Nishidani (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
His blog is a valid source for wikipedia as a refference for personal details and therefore must be restored. Loew Galitz (talk) 03:23, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. --ssr (talk) 06:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
His blog is not an independent source (about himself). 89.8.183.112 (talk) 02:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Consider changing the title (of the article)[edit]

Mark Bernstein (lexicographer) or Mark Bernstein (encyclopedia author) or Mark Bernstein (contributor on Wikimedia) or Mark Bernstein (Wikimedia pundit). But most important, I hope that the authorities that are detaining him, have a change of heart, in a timely manner. 89.8.146.21 (talk) 23:31, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently an open move discussion above. — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Mark Bernstein (Wikipedian)" seems most accurate, as he is known for his work on Wikipedia and not Wikimedia, arguably two quite different topics especially when used as a defining title descriptor. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Mark Bernstein (Wikipedia contributor)", or "Mark Bernstein (Wikipedia website contributor)". 89.8.144.217 (talk) 22:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A 'Wikipedia contributor' is known as a Wikipedian, which redirects to "Wikipedia community", (so does 'Wikipedia contributor' as of a few minutes ago when I popped a redirect in, thanks for the idea). Randy Kryn (talk) 04:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, the general public does not know what "Wikipedian" is. On the other hand - many people know about a project/website called "Wikipedia".--Please stick to what the public knows. 89.8.144.217 (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jurisdiction[edit]

The article does not make clear why he was arrested by a Belarusian security force after accused of violating Russian law. Assuming the arrest was not justified by Belarusian law in the first place, the article needs to explain something about Belarus-Russia relations. --Geraki (talk) 11:52, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Officially, he was sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention for "disobedience to a lawful order or demand of an official" (article 24.3 of the Administrative Code of Belarus). This "legal" basis is often used for detention of an enemies of the regime in Russia and Belarus. During administrative detention, their further destiny is being decided. K8M8S8 (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's true that the wording makes the logic unclear, but that's the fault of the known sourced information itself (last time I checked the sources). The sources say that Bernstein was accused on social media of violating the Russian law. He was then arrested (and sentenced) under Belarusian law. There are many possible credible interpretations, which more or less fall under variations on the theme "Russia controls Belarus". But without a source giving a particular interpretation, it's not justified to add that.
It's true that adding some background on Belarus-Russia relations would be useful for the reader, and it might be possible to add that without violating WP:NOR. After the RM (name change) debate is closed, this would probably make more sense to try. Boud (talk) 01:37, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Geraki, your note appears to assume that standard legal concepts such as jurisdiction apply in cases that might interest the current authorities in Russia and Belarus. But is that assumption well-founded? Adoring nanny (talk) 05:36, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Other Wikipedian[edit]

For anyone else who was similarly confused, this is not the same Wikipedian as the editor associated with English Wikipedia Gamergate topics,[3][4][5][6] though they share the same name. czar 03:03, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Prosecutor requests 3 years: RS needed[edit]

So far only on GAFAMish social media; Viasna Human Rights Centre will presumably report on this soon on its website: apparently the prosecutor is asking for three years of house arrest. Boud (talk) 00:27, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh oh needs to be updated[edit]

all in the title ;-) --Madelgarius (talk) 12:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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