How to reorganize Russian Wikipedia: all attempts led to nothing

Today I would like to talk again about our internal problems. And first of all – about half-deeds, half-measures. We don’t like them. From school we remember: “Half my lord, half merchant,/Half wise, half ignorant,/Half scoundrel, but there is hope,/That it will finally be complete…” Of all the prefixoids – such as the prefix “half-” – I am closest to its use in the word “ polugar.” But this is a whole product.

So, decisions are made, but very late. Even if the whole road is dotted with red lines…

I will not take the most painful examples – I will turn to what is closer to me. I have been working on virtual encyclopedias for many years, so I dare to hope that I have some idea of ​​the state of affairs in Russian Wikipedia. Moreover, I was repeatedly invited by the volunteer office “Wikimedia RU” to be a speaker at their conferences, organized several competitions and even have a diploma from its management.

Before my eyes, the main role in the core of the process of editing materials here was taken by people with clearly controversial views, with Ukrainian, German, American, Canadian and numerous Israeli passports.

All sorts of memory institutions of our neighbors have also joined in the work on the “correct” interpretation of the most pressing articles.

Our first attempt at “answering Curzon” was the launch of the Russian Wikipedia project, organized by a respected publishing house. This work was planned to be compiled into 35 solid volumes, it received the awards due to it – and was forgotten as unclaimed.

When work on the next, it seems, 20th (I could be wrong, but not much) volume of the Russian Encyclopedia was completed, the idea arose to create an electronic version of this monster. The approach was serious: academicians who took part in the creation of “Noah’s Ark of Knowledge” suggested that the state fork out another 670 million rubles for the virtual version.

The articles had to be written by respected people; they could not be edited by outsiders, of course. And it’s okay that many of them soon became outdated, thereby misleading readers and compromising the entire project.

And yet, a working group on issues related to the creation of a “National Scientific and Educational Interactive Encyclopedic Portal” was created. It was planned to open the portal to everyone thirsty for knowledge in the fall of 2022… I was also invited there to one of the serious posts, but the futility of the plan was visible from the very beginning. How can one not recall Andrei Platonov’s immortal story “City of Grads”:

“And it was like this. There was a famine due to drought in the Gradov province. Five million rubles were allocated to feed the peasants and for special hydraulic engineering work.

The presidium of the Gradovsky provincial executive committee met eight times: what to do with this money? The serious issue was discussed for four months.

In Moscow, the leaders of the province told the government that although it is impossible to say exactly what the five million allocated last year for agriculture were spent on, these millions should be of some use: after all, the money was spent in the Gradov province, and not in someone else’s place and will have an impact somehow.

“Maybe ten years will pass,” said the chairman of the Gradovsky provincial executive committee, “and our rye will begin to grow like a shaft, and potatoes into a wheel.” Then we’ll see where the five million rubles went!”

And indeed it has risen. After the events of 2022, it became completely unbearable to read articles by nominees from the former outskirts of the Russian Empire, and a new idea arose – I must say, quite reasonable: to take the existing Russian Wikipedia as a basis – it is still a people’s creation, and remove all enemy layers from it.

No sooner said than done! Without the participation of academics, several groups of enthusiasts created “mirrors” of the familiar version and began clearing the Augean stables.

Everything would be good, but not good: at the same time, the previous version continued to work, which negates all costs (both intellectual and material).

Currently in effect:

– Encyclopedia “Runiversalis”. It contains just over 2 million articles, but the activity after the first manipulations is insignificant.

— Encyclopedia “Ruviki” with a number of articles approaching 2 million, but with sections in the languages ​​of the peoples of Russia. Here the work scheme is closer to the original: anonymous editing and free registration are available, although edits are subject to verification by authorized participants. But the activity after copying is small.

— Finally, the encyclopedia “Knowledge” is looking for its path. Wiki”, which created as many as 25 thousand articles. The creators encourage institutions and companies to create articles about themselves and their employees, providing part of the budget for this. Without indicating the principles of selection and the form of narration. Like Marshak in “The Cat’s House”: “You dance whatever you want, as long as it’s a merry dance!”

What these projects have in common is that they were headed, as always, by “effective managers”, the main thing for whom is the budget. That is, the principle “money conquers evil” applies again!

But here’s the problem: Wikipedia has different principles. This is a network structure with a cooperative management principle. And it existed very well in peacetime. But she was uninteresting because she did not accumulate a lot of money. But after February 2022, our enemies took it up and, without changing the fundamental principles, easily made it their tool. We didn’t even notice how it became a malignant tumor. Competing with an already proven mechanism is like “a schoolboy fighting with selected punks” (I’m not calling anyone names, I’m just quoting Vysotsky). Although this will have to be done.

But there was a good example with Facebook (the activities of Meta – these are the social networks Facebook and Instagram – are prohibited in Russia as extremist). When it was closed, of course, someone found ways to continue pouring out their streams of consciousness on it, but the majority of Russian users left the “mordokniga” for domestic, path (I hope) and imperfect social networks.

It turns out like this: the surgeon correctly diagnosed the patient, decided that he needed to cut urgently, “without waiting for peritonitis,” opened the patient, and then wondered: is he doing everything right? And then my colleagues came with advice… And when money appeared here, the administrative and economic part of the hospital became the main one in this story.

And Carthage had to be destroyed! And the conversation is not about destroying Wikipedia, but about preserving the main body of knowledge created by tens of thousands of Russian authors, with the same principle of updating them. What is subject to “amputation” is the parasitic superstructure, which has nothing to do with all this.

We need to start… However, who is asking us?

And this is a story from a hundred years ago, described as if from life by Ilf and Petrov in everyone’s favorite “12 Chairs”:

“The tram station, the construction of which stopped at the foundation, was conceived by Treukhov a long time ago.

No one knew exactly when they started building the Stargorod tram.

Once, in 1920, when cleanup days began, depot workers and rope workers went to Gusishche with music and spent the whole day digging some holes. They dug a lot of deep and large holes. A comrade in an engineer’s cap was running among the workers. Foremans walked behind him with multi-colored poles. The next cleanup day we worked in the same place. Two holes dug in the wrong places had to be filled up again. A comrade in an engineer’s cap attacked the foreman and demanded an explanation. New holes were dug even deeper and wider.

Then they brought bricks, and real construction workers appeared. They started laying the foundation. Then everything became quiet. A comrade in an engineer’s cap sometimes came to the empty building and walked for a long time in the brick-lined hole.”

This is world history – Russian Wikipedia…

There are revolutionary and evolutionary methods of transformation. We are trying to introduce “dance”. In the style of the cheerful dance “Letka-enka”. Everyone seems to be together (most of them voluntarily, some were strongly recommended to be in the team), hands on the waist of the neighbor, we jump forward, backward, forward again. It seems like we are moving somewhere, but this is not so important, the main thing is that everyone is having fun and everyone is busy!

It seems that a number of the most important decisions are determined by Podkolesin from Gogol’s “Marriage”.

“Even now there is no way to move back: in a minute and down the aisle; You can’t even leave – there’s already a carriage there, and everything is standing ready. As if you really can’t leave?”

However, it could not be otherwise. Society is now in a deep hangover. The past decades could not have been in vain: the body was poisoned. We are trying to be treated with cucumber pickle, Alko-Seltzer… This gives results: the body is partially cleansed, removing toxins through the Upper Lars, other places… But these are also half measures, but there is the most reliable method, well known to the chief physician – in Soviet times his called “restaurant”: two fingers in the mouth…

Our president announced that victory in the elections is only the prologue to a great Victory. This means that the third bell has already sounded, and the action is about to begin. Naturally, the extra lights in the hall will be turned off…