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So, let us drag the french admins of wikipedia into the dirt, shall we? I have gathered stuff from the last couple days of the ongoing events, and taken time to translate them so that english-speaking people can realize the depth of the nonsense going on over there. Because that community is the way it is, it's very obtuse and flowery french that's used in their discussions, peppered with acronyms that contract french expressions or wikipedia slang, and so translators could be somewhat unreliable.

The context here is that very clearly biased poll which questions I dutifully translated for you. The central crux was trying to standardize the way we trans people are discussed, especially with respect to mentions of our deadname. Please appreciate the irony of mostly cis people asking mostly cis people if it's okay to deadname us and how exactly they should do it.

The poll wasn't really advertised, until a couple of posts here and there shared it and called for us and our allies to come and express our opinion, in the most tame and neutral tones possible.

The original criterion for votes to be accepted was 50 contributions on general pages (which excludes niche technical contributions). On top of being a vast amount of contributions, it was discussed:

to maybe exclude accounts for which those last 50 were too far in the past: "For the record, tallying the last 50 contributions of all accounts (and only those from 2024), I created a list of eligible accounts for the poll. [...] One flagrant example is Nicky, whose last contribution is from 2007, and then one in 2024... yeah right [condescending]. Not sure my methodology is more exhaustive than that of Lebrouillard, but it exists."
to raise it to 500: "Hello, I am making a dedicated section. Clearly, there is ongoing brigading. Therefore, please raise the threshold for acceptable ballots to 500 contributions." (which is ludicrous, that's more than one a day for more than a whole year)

Following this poll being suddenly widely talked about, and the opinions tipping, french editors opened a note on the admin bulletin, accusing trans contributors of being activists and biased: "Diversity of opinion in activist communities? Hilarious"

Administrators of french wikipedia have also gone out of their way to identify the wikipedia accounts of some of the people whose posts I linked above, calling for indefinite bans, bans over a defined period, as well as blanket bans on all pages related to the topic of being trans. In that particular link, the administrators consider the use of "transphobia" in a content warning, as a form of slander and harassment organized outside of the platform: "JohnNewton8(sysop): [...] Sinkra's message could moreover be interpreted as libelous (accusation of transphobia) [...] / Jules: I believe the use of "trigger warning: transphobia" on Sinkra's post to not be targeting individual contributors but warning Sinkra's audience which may be sensitive to some of the comments being shared on the poll."

The worst part about that last bit? Complains from the admins that they have to deal with similar "brigading" and "biased activist editing" by an organisation called "Les Sans Pages" (LSP, "Those without a Page"), which is dedicated to helping reduce the abysmal gender bias in biographical wikipedia pages. "It is not the first time that accounts, including old accounts, drag our principles into the mud. Regularly, activists from LSP create controversy [...]"

This is beyond horrendous behaviour from the french wikipedia editors, with the full support of their administrators, who are willing to enforce guidelines and the code of conduct against those calling for a biased poll to happen under somewhat fair circumstances. Shame on the admins, who should be removed from their position, and clearly let the mask slip. Shame on the editors, whose bias and bigotry they hide under the guide of encyclopedic guidelines and neutrality, while shifting the blame on us for trying to be heard.

(thanks however to @belore for gathering most of the links on here)

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