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Talk:Russian web brigades

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 84.229.248.58 (talk) at 03:55, 11 April 2007 (→[] and []). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Relation to previous article

I do not recall exactly the previous article on this general subject; I assume that this one has been revised from the article discussed at Deletion review which in turn links to the AfD at

I see that there are only Russian sources for the earlier part of the article; there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, and some are translated. But because of the nature of the subject, I think it extremely important to find sources published by journalists from elsewhere, not directly involved in the controversy. DGG 04:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I belive it is now a significantly different article, although some segments of text indeed concide. The title and content are very different, this article is much bigger and includes 14 references (the initial version of the article previously marked for deletion included only one reference, although I increased the number of references during deletion discussion). O'K, let' take a look at the references:
  1. ^ a b c China's secret internet police target critics with web of propaganda, by Jonathan Watts in Beijing, June 14, 2005, Guardian Unlimited
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer. by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003 (English translation)
  3. ^ a b c d e Eye for an eye (Russian) by Grigory Svirsky and Vladimur Bagryansky, publication of Russian Center for Extreme Journalism 
  4. ^ Articles by Anna Polyanskaya, MAOF publishing group
  5. ^ They are killing Galina Starovoitova for the second time (Russian) by Anna Polyanskaya
  6. ^ Conspiracy theory by Alexander Usupovsky, Russian Journal, 25 April, 2003
  7. ^ Operation "Disinformation" - The Russian Foreign Office vs "Tygodnik Powszechny", Tygodnik Powszechny, 13/2005
  8. ^ Interview of Roman Sadykhov (Russian), grani.ru, 3 April, 2007.
  9. ^ Military wing of Kremlin (Russian), The New Times, 19 March, 2007
 10. ^ " Grigory Svirsky Anastasya. A story on-line (Full text in Russian)
 11. ^ China's Hu vows to "purify" Internet, Reuters, Jan 24, 2007
 12. ^ War of the words by Guardian Unlimited, February 20, 2006
 13. ^ Ｗho are China's Top Internet Cops? China Digital Times
 14. ^ Internet as a field of information war against Armenia, by Samvel Martirosyan, 18 October, 2006,

References 1 and 7 are not written by Russian journalists, althouth they claim directly about the existence of this phenomenon. What do you mean: "involvement in controversy"? Do you mean that Ivan Lomko is "involved" because he discussed this matter in blogs after publication of his article? That sounds strange to me. But all other Russian authors are certainly not "involved" this way (Polyanskaya and references 3 (Grigory Svirsky), 8 and 9; others are not "Russian"). Biophys 06:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What exacly is different for example? 1. Definition of the phenomenon was changed (so, we are talking about a different thing). 2. This is described as an international (not solely Russian) phenomenon. 3. More references was added and POV significantly reduced. Biophys 06:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Why this article does not qualify for speedy deletion

The rule says: "Recreation of deleted material. A copy, by any title, of a page that was deleted via Articles for deletion or another XfD process, provided that the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version and that any revisions made clearly do not address the reasons for which the page was deleted."

First, this article is not "substantially identical to the deleted version" (see below: it is sever times bigger and even its subject is significantly different). Second, even if to consider this as a recreation of an old article, the reasons for deletion were clearly addressed. The following critique has been provided during the deletion discussion: (a) wrong title; (b) WP:OR; (c) this is not a solely Russian phenomenon. All of that clearly can not be said about Internet brigades article. (a) The title is different. (b) This is not OR; 16 references to reliable sources provided. (c) This is not a solely Russian phenomenon, as clear from the text.

Now more detail:Biophys 17:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

First, I think this is new article. Yes, I have created previously the following article (this is the text exactly as it was when it was marked for deletion and the voting began - see):

Internet troll squads are teams of people from state security organizations who work in the Internet to harass and intimidate political bloggers, prevent free discussion of undesirable subjects, and to create the public opinion desired by the authorities.

This phenomenon has been discovered in RuNet by a group of investigative journalists led of Anna Polyanskaya, a former assistant to the Russian politician Galina Starovoitova

They found the appearance of organized and fairly professional “Squads”, composed of ideologically and methodologically identical personalities, who work in practically every popular liberal and pro-democracy blogs and internet newspapers of RuNet in Russian blogosphere. Troll squads appeared suddenly on Russian-language forums only in 1999 and they have been presumably organized by FSB, according to Polyanskaya and her collegaues.

These Internet “Squads” have a number of distinct features some of which are the folowing:

Sources

References

  1. They are killing Galina Starovoitova for the second time (Russian) by Anna Polyanskaya
  2. Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer. by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko

Now please take a look at the present text of Internet brigades. The definition of the phenomenon is different. So, we are talking about a different thing. This is now an international (not solely Russian) phenomenon. There are 16 references insted of 2, and so on. Even if one consider this a partial recreation of an old article, it is perfectly consistent with Misplaced Pages policies to recreate an article if its initial verstion (stub!) has been deleted. Biophys 17:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not deleting this article at this time, and I have removed the speedy tags. Kafziel 17:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Reasons for speedy deletion

  • First of all, nothing has changed really in the article. The only thing that changed is defenition. And again it is original research. Where and who named those hoax russian teams "internet brigades"? Biophys linked originally to the Guradian article about China, but there is no any labelling of that thing in China. Guradian uses the term "army of secret comentators". Later after the article was nominated for deletion, Biophys has added a link to Polyanskaya article "Commissars of the internet". And again we see that throughout the whole text a term "brigade" is used meaning "team". Only once the term "web-brigade" is used. Looking onto other sources - we see that there is no such term which was used by Biophys. Conclusion, the term and the name for the article is an original research by Biophys which is not found in its sources.
  • Second, Biophys again publishes Sections "Behaviour" and "Tactics" - they haven't changed even and are ridiculously worded. According to them, every man in the internet who supports Putin - is a member of KGB "internet team". It is stupid... They abuse directly other users in Misplaced Pages.
  • Third, the article in Russian Misplaced Pages directly shows in its infobox that "Internet teams" are conspiracy theory and the whole thing is based on claims of few people, namely - Polyanskaya, Krivov and Lomko - authors of the article "Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer". Nowhere on this article the information about conspiracy theory is indicated.
  • Fourth, like the other article it is totally dedicated to Russia. Even adding some original research comparisons with China didn't help - the article is totally about Russia. For example. original research is all that Biophys published in the Section "Recent developments" nothing is said in the sources about the subject of the article - internet teams.
  • Fifth, the defenition of internet teams is totally original research. Nowhere you coud find that "intenet teams" are waging state-sponcored information warfare. Indeed, the word "warfare" is totally POV, except original research. Nowhere in sources you find that this is a warfare, and is against "blogs" or "political bloggers" - I have already pointed many times that nowhere in Russian sources you could find a word "Blog".
  • Sixth, false translation and original research in that "internet brigades" are working against blogs.
  • Seventh, this article is a POV fork of the deleted article Internet Troll Squads which was twice deleted: AfD and deletion review. Therefore the words of Kafziel do not correspond to reality. Moreover, the forst voting at AfD was rigged by Biophys and his friends canvassing outside the Misplaced Pages.Vlad fedorov 04:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Reply. 1. Please try Google search "Internet brigades", and you will see a lot of hits. I even had to make a disambig page Internet brigade. "Internet brigades" is simply translation from Russian. 2 No original research here. Everything is taken from sources. I personally do not claim anything at all. 3 Definition of the "Internet brigades" is taken from the sources. I only try to formulate this in encyclopedic style. If someone can formulate this better - you are welcome to do it. Let's discuss it here. 4 There is no much difference between "blogs" and "internet forums". If you think there is, we can write everywhere "forum" instead of "blog". 5 I wrote that Ysopovsky claimed this to be a conspiracy theory. This is something not obvious and debatable ("pro" and "contras" can be included in the article).Biophys 04:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
  • 1. And what? What reliable references out of these you have published? Do they refer to Russia or China?.
  • 2. Hahaha... Nothing is found in sources about state-sponcored information warfare. Give us the references and sources. You haven't done it.
  • 3. It is absoultely unencyclopedic in that you haven't given any reliable references.
  • 4. There is a big difference between "forum" and "blog". But let your ignorance speak for itself.
  • 5. It is so obvious, that even in Russian wikipedia people inserted warning infobox. So it's important enough.Vlad fedorov 05:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of text supported by references

The text deleted by Vlad was supported by the following references:

(1) Article by Usupovsky. He said in the end: "Огульное охаивание и нарочитая дискредитация с помощью "аргументов", сквозь которые просвечивают белые нитки, лишь способствует выталкиванию спецслужб во внеправовое пространство и толкает их к беспределу." That is exactly what I wrote in the article.

(2) Article by Svirsky. It claims a lot of things including the following: "Для нас несомненно, что в лице интернетной агитбригады Александра Юсуповского мы имеем наиболее косную и профнепригодную группу идеологической работы российской госбезопасности в Рунете. Эти агитаторы ФСБ были неспособны на серьёзные интеллектуальные дискуссии и до публикации аналитической работы "Виртуальное око старшего брата". На появление статьи интернет-Лубянка ответила её авторам и своим оппонетам на форумах Рунета тоже по-сталински: не серьёзным спором с фактами и аргументами в этой умной, богатой наблюдениями статье, а – выстрелом грязной шрапнелью. И прямыми угрозами убийства – пока лишь виртуальными... ". By the way, it uses expression: "интернетной агитбригады". Direct translation: "Internet agitation brigade".Biophys 16:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Improper title

On top of all of the above, the article's title is unjustified. The term "Internet brigades" has no established English usage in this context and as per this a neutrally phrased descriptive title is needed. I can't be sure which one since it is not clear to me what the scope of this article is supposed to be and whether it is the author intention to present this as a conspiracy theory or a real phenomenon. In any case, the current title is unacceptable. --Irpen 01:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Internet brigades and Misplaced Pages

Is anything known of those guys trying to push their propaganda through in Misplaced Pages? This project would be - intrinsically - a good means for these people.213.35.213.206 18:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

They would be interested in this article and other russia related stuff.