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Hi,<br>
<br>
I don't know how many of you have heard about Moshe Silman. His
death, a week after setting himself on fire during a rally in Tel
Aviv against the cost of living and the government's social policy
(which took place on 14 July 2012), brought the recent
anti-government protests to a new peak. You can read about him here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-man-sets-himself-on-fire-during-tel-aviv-social-protest-1.451041">http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-man-sets-himself-on-fire-during-tel-aviv-social-protest-1.451041</a>
here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/middleeast/israeli-protester-moshe-silman-dies-after-self-immolation.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/middleeast/israeli-protester-moshe-silman-dies-after-self-immolation.html</a>
here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/18/moshe-silman-self-immolation">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/18/moshe-silman-self-immolation</a>
and in many other Israeli and international reports.<br>
<br>
There is an interesting debate currently going on about whether an
article about him should be included in the Hebrew Wikipedia.
Apparently people tried to start an article about him shortly after
the reports about his dramatic act of protest reached the local
press. The people who tried to initiate the article were not
"hard-core" Wikipedians, some of them weren't even registered and
didn't bother to register. The non-registered users were soon
blocked, as the article was put under special protection, and the
article was nominated for deletion.<br>
<br>
I read two interesting blogposts about the issue by a non-Wikipedian
who said he was one of those who tried to initiate the article
without registering (Based on his posts, I'm not sure he even knew
in advance that WP had a registration option). I'm translating his
posts into English, but it's going to take me some time, so if you
happen to know some Hebrew and wish to read them, you can find them
here: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cafe.themarker.com/post/2697180/">http://cafe.themarker.com/post/2697180/</a> and here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cafe.themarker.com/post/2707797/">http://cafe.themarker.com/post/2707797/</a> If you use machine
translation - do it cautiously. The Heb-to-Eng option is still a
huge challenge for this mechanism.<br>
<br>
Some background - The Hebrew Wikipedia is known to adhere to
delitionism. The protests in Israel that started about a year ago
(focusing mainly on social and economic government policy and
partially inspired by the similar protests in southern Europe and by
the so-called Arab Spring protests) triggered a demand for Hebrew
Wikipedia article about the leaders of the protests, like Daphni
Leef and Stav Shaffir (both now have articles also in English). The
Hebrew article about Daphni Leef was nominated for deletion while
Wikimania 2011 was held in Haifa (and incidentally a large
protesters' camp was set just next to the Wikimania 2011 venue). The
protest was mentioned by the keynote speakers, and Jimmy Wales
brought the Daphni Leef article deletion debate as a major topic in
his closing talk about "the state of the Wiki".<br>
<br>
Dror K<br>
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