[pet_the_bird]

I think the article tried to refer to this link https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10663 As I understand from scanning the paper, the authors attempt to determine differences between the Russian wikipedia articles and the articles on the Russian fork. They show that articles on the fork that were that differ from RU wikipedia have a significantly higher number of edits on RU wikipedia. The authors suggest that these may be signs of manipulations, however, it may not have affected the quality negatively (as stated in the discussion).

I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.

[mmooss]

The article is not about that link. Here's what it says:

Yesterday, I read a Wikipedia page for a book I’m about to review. I am still unsettled.

The page was stripped of reality, and in its place was a sanitized fairytale where Putin is good and the book — a brutal and damning historic account of Soviet abuses — is subtly and not so subtly undermined from every direction.

Once I got over the shock of what I had just read — it was like being forced into an alternate reality — I began investigating Russia’s relationship to Wikipedia. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Russian state has been steadily distorting truth, exploiting the platform’s crowd-sourcing architecture to influence public knowledge.

[mmooss]

To partly correct myself, among the many reports OP cites and reviews, it directly refers and links to the following:

> In a report titled Characterizing Knowledge Manipulation in a Russian Wikipedia Fork, ...

The OP describes and quotes the report for 5 paragraphs. I don't understand the GP's claim that,

> I think the article tried to refer to this link https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10663 As I understand from scanning the paper ...

That link is to a paper by the same name. I don't understand why the GP says 'tried' - the authors provide a link to the paper and describe it in detail - or why the GP would think critique based on "scanning the paper" is valid when, again, the OP authors clearly read and review it for readers in far more detail.

Also, the GP leave the impression, maybe unintentionally, that the OP is based only on that report; the OP reviews many reports in detail.

[p91paul]

I found it unsettling that in an article about political manipulation the author did not provide a link to the book entry

[mmooss]

What book entry are you referring to? What book? The paper - not a book entry or book - cited in the GGP was linked to and reviewed in detail by the OP.

[p91paul]

the article begins like this:

> Yesterday, I read a Wikipedia page for a book I’m about to review. I am still unsettled.

> The page was stripped of reality, and in its place was a sanitized fairytale where Putin is good and the book — a brutal and damning historic account of Soviet abuses — is subtly and not so subtly undermined from every direction.

We have no idea which book that was and what was so unsettling about that entry

[mmooss]

Ah, thanks. That makes sense.

[Pay08]

Wikipedia is full of state-sponsored activity, and even fuller of useful idiots for those states. Russia might not be doing it in particular, though.

[drysine]

The situation may very well be reverse - "West" and the Ukraine manipulate content of the Wikipedia articles and ordinary Russians who see that try to make the articles more balanced.

Take a look at this article, for example: "Child abductions in the Russo-Ukrainian war"[0].

It retranslates Ukrainian propaganda about 20 thousand children in the first sentence, but buries the objective fact that the Ukraine only produced the list of 339 children in the section "Russian reaction".

I'd wager that only 5% of readers would read past the summary and that most of them will just skip the section with documentation of "Russian propaganda".

I haven't bothered to try, but good luck trying to integrate this fact into the summary.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-...