i have spent perhaps more time than advisable to establish a paper trail for the events which resulted in unilateral censorship of all images of stalin across english wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Abzeronow#c-Lcdrovers-20260512162100-you_have_closed_a_discussion_with_critical_open_questions_remaining._the_policy
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the effective censorship was initiated on may 3, through deletion on wikimedia commons, which immediately propagates across wikipedia through editing bots https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bald%E2%80%93hairy&diff=prev&oldid=1352245650
removing all mentions of an object upon a page is an editorial decision that invisibilizes the act of censorship. in particular, it results in a "fail open" situation as here, in which the act of censorship continues, requiring significantly more individual effort to resolve. it is an open question whether this automated redlink removal is able to revert itself, and under what conditions
the editing bot that removes red links also notifies the admin authorizing the deletion of the further cover-up operations. however it is "unable" to link to the discussion justifying the deletion correctly:
Removing Joseph_Stalin_in_1932_(4)_(cropped)(2).jpg; it has been deleted from Commons by Abzeronow because: per [[:c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Portrait photogra
that is a completely broken wikilink to the deletion request. iiuc, the broken wikilink also fails to backlink. this means: functionality which would have produced a log of the cascading bot censorship upon the may 3 admin censorship, is currently broken
in the discussion i initiated with the deleting admin from OP, i of course explained the very fun fact about the beginning of may https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day
Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of the Haymarket affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe.
i didn't really need to follow up on this further, but it allowed me to quickly fire off an NPOV
i did a great job and i'm very proud of myself for completely avoiding the desire to castigate the individual user and their sockpuppet https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Category:Portrait_photographs_of_Joseph_Stalin#c-Howardcorn33-20260301215500-Files_in_Category:Portrait_photographs_of_Joseph_Stalin_2
because in fact, the problem here is not that they tried, but that they succeeded, and currently remain successful
Your exercise of deletion authority at all given the clearly extant discussion invalidating the basis of its claim, seems to indicate either that I have grievously misunderstood Wikipedia deletion policies, or that it was a mistake, by way of reverting that mistake. I can ensure the political hair table is addressed.
i avoided the term "neglect" from a previous iteration. i also avoided "escalation". sooooo proud of self
but this final part was my best work of all:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_in_Category:Portrait_photographs_of_Joseph_Stalin#c-Howardcorn33-20260301215500-Files_in_Category:Portrait_photographs_of_Joseph_Stalin_2
Separately, the nomination thread appears to demonstrate misuse, or even potential "weaponization" of the policies and resources wikipedia provides regarding copyright claims to images. Setting aside the specific behavior of anyone in the thread, copyright law is well-known for its history of misuse to quell freedom of expression. It seems inarguable to me that this nomination thread demonstrates that editors (I include myself) and admins need help to navigate and evaluate such claims—in particular, the relevant legal determination was not clear.
@hipsterelectron probably has to do with ukraine
